UNIVERSITY  OF  CA  RIVERSIDE,  LIBRARY 


3  1210  01711  5997 


ISCENCES 
OFADRAMATIC 
CP.ITIC 


HENRY-AUSTINCLAPP 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


Bit 


REMINISCENCES  OF 

A  DRAMATIC 

CRITIC 

WITH  AN   ESSAY  ON    THE  ART 
OF  HENRY  IRVING 

BY 

HENRY  AUSTIN  CLAPP 

"Forsan  et  hmc  olim  meminisse  juvabit." 


BOSTON   AND    NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

^Jje  Ri\jcr?ibe  pre??,  CambriDge 

1902 


COPYRIGHT,  1902,  BY  HENRY  AUSTIN  CLAPP 
ALL    RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Published  May,  iqoa 


To  F.  C.  C. 


NOTE 

The  reader  is  informed  of  what  he  may 
discover  for  himself,  —  that  these  reminis- 
cences are  not  exhaustive  in  any  sense  of 
the  adjective,  and  do  not  profess  to  present 
the  history  of  the  theatre  in  the  United 
States  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century.  Nearly  all  the  artists 
commented  on  are  dead;  but  not  all  the 
famous  actors  deceased  w^ithin  the  writer's 
time  are  mentioned,  even  by  name.  The 
author  has  chronicled  merely  those  recol- 
lections which,  for  any  reason  or  no  rea- 
son, have  remained  most  vivid  in  his 
memory. 

H.  A.  C. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.    BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION       ....  I 

II.    SPECTACLE,    FARCE,   MELODRAMA,  AND 

MINSTRELSY  FIFTY  YEARS  AGO      .       .  7 

III.  THE  WORTH  AND  IMPOTENCE    OF    FREE 

CRITICISM 21 

IV.  SOME     EARLY    EXPERIENCES    AND    MIS- 

TAKES       27 

V.    SELWYN'S  theatre  and  the  ROBERT- 
SON PERIOD 33 

VI.    THE   EPHEMERAL  DRAMA  AND  THE  EN- 
DURING DRAMA 41 

VII.    THE  GREAT    DRAMATIC  QUINQUENNIUM 

AND  THE  BOSTON  MUSEUM          ...  47 

VIII.    WILLIAM  WARREN,   COMEDIAN      •        •       •  53 
IX.    ACTUAL  AND  IDEAL  TRAINING  FOR  THE 

STAGE 68 

X.   J.   L.  TOOLE   AND    CHARLES   JAMES    MA- 
THEWS      76 

XI.    CHARLOTTE  CUSHMAN 82 

XII.    E.  A.   SOTHERN,   SR 93 

XIII.  THE  ISOLATION  OF  ACTORS      ....  I06 

XIV.  CHARLES  FECHTER II3 

XV.    EDWIN  BOOTH I3I 

XVI.    TOMMASO  SALVINI 1 42 


[     vii     ] 


CONTENTS 


XVII.    ADELAIDE  NEILSON 1 59 

XVIII.    MEMORABLE    EXPERIENCES    OF    SINGLE 

PLAYS  AND  ARTISTS I  73 

XIX.    AN  AMERICAN  THEATRE  PRIVATELY  EN- 
DOWED    185 

XX.    HENRY  IRVING 1 94 

INDEX 237 


[    vili    ] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 
WILLIAM  WARREN       ....      Fr07lt ispicce 

CHARLOTTE  CUSHMAX 82 

EDWIN  BOOTH I33 

TOMMASO  SALVINI 1 42 

ADELAIDE  NEILSON 160 

HENRY  IRVING 1 94 


REMINISCENCES   OF 
A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


By  Way  of  Introduction 

THE  critic  who  presumes  to  write 
his  reminiscences,  and  therefore  to 
invite  the  implication  that  he  be- 
longs to  the  past  rather  than  to  the  present, 
may  find  many  a  coigne  o'  vantage  in  his 
position  when  he  comes  to  hold  it  with 
pen  and  ink  against  the  public.  He  is  not 
required  to  practice  much  self-restraint  : 
garrulit}^  is  expected,  if  not  desired,  of 
him,  as  "  part  of  his  defect  ;  "  nobody  will 
disrelish  his  memoirs  if  their  occasional 
flavor  is  a  pleasant  sour  ;  and  in  dealing 
with  dramatic  artists  —  at  least  with  those 
who  are  dead  or  otherwise  gone  —  he  will 
be  allowed  free  play  for  the  knife  of  his 
criticism.    Moreover,  he  is  in  a  situation 

[    I    ] 


A    DRAMATIC    CRITIC 

of  rare  and  novel  privilege  in  respect  of 
his  pronouns  ;  no  need  here  to  periphrase 
with  neuters  and  passives,  or  to  masquerade 
in  the  mock  ermine  of  the  editorial  "  we," 
since  there  is  no  reason  why  every  one  of 
his  pages  should  not  be  as  full  of  /'s  be- 
fore and  behind  as  any  Apocalyptic  Beast. 
I  must  forewarn  my  readers,  however, 
that  I  can  furnish  them  with  few  of  those 
intimate  details  concerning  actors,  au- 
thors, and  managers,  which  are  relished 
sefnper^  ubique,  et  ab  omnibus^  even  the 
cultivated  and  fastidious.  My  narrative 
will  be  reduced  in  value  by  reason  of  this 
deficiency.  After  gossip  has  been  allowed 
to  stand  for  a  few  years,  it  usually  rids  it- 
self of  its  pernicious  bacteria,  and  becomes 
a  wholesome  as  well  as  sprightly  bever- 
age. The  qualities  of  Master  Samuel  Pepys 
which  made  him  a  dangerous  neighbor  in 
1670  make  him  a  valuable  historian  in 
1 90 1.  But  it  has  seemed  best  to  me, 
partly  because  actors  are  a  very  sensitive 

[    2    ] 


INTRODUCTION 


and  fascinating  folk,  to  deny  myself  the 
pleasure  of  their  intimate  acquaintance, 
as  a  rule,  in  the  hope  that  my  head  might 
neither  be  quite  turned  nor  much  deflected 
from  a  true  level.  Many  of  my  confreres 
have  pursued  a  contrary  policy  with  im- 
pressive success,  I  am  aware  ;  and  I  con- 
cede that,  as  a  critic,  I  have  sometimes 
lost,  as  well  as  sometimes  gained,  through 
my  lack  of  personal  contact  with  dramatic 
artists.  My  readers  must  enjoy  my  remi- 
niscences, if  they  enjoy  them  at  all,  as  a 
series  of  reconsiderations  of  the  plays  and 
players  of  the  past,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  a  disinterested  citizen  or  public  censor. 
There  ought  to  be  some  pleasure,  and  some 
profit,  also,  for  all  of  us  in  such  a  review, 
since  it  may  be  made  calmly,  through  an 
atmosphere  cleared  by  reflection,  from  a 
distance  which  permits  the  observer  to  see 
things  in  perspective,  and  to  judge  truly  of 
their  relative  sizes  and  proportions. 

It  was  about  thirty  years  ago  that  I  took 


[    3    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


the  place  of  critic  of  the  drama  for  the 
Boston  Daily  Advertiser.  M}^  first  ser- 
vice was  rendered  when  that  newspaper 
had  for  its  editors  two  remarkable  men, 
to  whom  I  can  pay  at  this  moment  hardly 
any  other  tribute  than  to  mention  them 
by  name.  The  assistant,  George  Bryant 
Woods,  the  most  precociously  brilliant 
person  I  ever  knew,  died  in  1 871,  in  his 
twenty-seventh  year  j  having  won  distinc- 
tion as  a  critic  of  literature  and  the  theatre, 
as  a  special  correspondent,  as  a  raconteur 
of  short  stories,  and  as  a  writer  of  leaders 
upon  nearly  all  current  topics.  The  editor 
in  chief,  Charles  Franklin  Dunbar,  who 
passed  away  only  a  few  months  ago,  senior 
professor  of  political  economy  at  Harvard, 
and  ripe  in  years  and  honors,  was  a  man 
of  great  wisdom,  force,  and  acumen,  and 
the  master  of  a  style  which,  for  point, 
power,  and  purity,  has  been  surpassed  by 
that  of  scarcely  any  American  journalist 
of  our  day. 

[    4    ] 


INTRODUCTION 


My  equipment  for  my  task  may  be  indi- 
cated in  a  very  brief  paragraph.  From  a 
child  I  had  been  interested  in  the  theatre 
and  a  reader  of  dramatic  literature.  I  had 
been  a  student  of  Shakespeare  for  many 
years,  having  received  my  first  impetus 
toward  the  great  poet  from  the  accom- 
plished Mr.  now  Dr.  William  J.  Rolfe, 
when  he  was  head  master  and  I  a  pupil  of 
the  Dorchester  High  School.  I  had  seen  a 
good  deal  of  acting,  and  had  tried  my  'pren- 
tice hand  at  commenting  upon  it  under 
my  superiors  on  the  paper.  I  brought  to 
my  work  an  unaffected  eagerness  and  in- 
tensity of  interest,  which  have  not  flagged 
to  this  day.  I  may  add  that  I  had  an  exalted 
idea  of  the  importance  of  my  office,  and  of 
the  awfulness  of  my  responsibility  to  the 
theatre,  to  the  theatrical  profession,  to  Art 
spelled  with  a  very  large  initial  A,  to  the 
readers  of  the  Advertiser  in  particular,  and 
to  the  entire  Community  in  general.  There 
is  something  comical  in  this  statement,  and 

[    5    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


perhaps  it  is,  therefore,  well  that  I  should 
tack  on  to  its  retrospective  magniloquence 
the  assertion  —  obviously  superfluous  and, 
in  the  absence  of  challenge,  a  bit  suspicious 
—  that  I  meant  to  be  fair  and  just,  to  the 
extent  of  my  ability. 


[    6    ] 


II 


Spectacle,   Farce,   Melodrama,  and 
Minstrelsy  Fifty  Years  Ago 


A 


PART  of  my  stock  in  trade,  of 
course,  was  my  theatrical  experi- 
ence, which  dated  from  my  seeing 
the  Viennese  children  at  the  Boston  Mu- 
seum when  I  was  eight  years  of  age.  Then 
followed,  at  great  yawning,  heart-straining 
intervals  of  time,  the  fairy  plays  which 
were  "  features  "  at  that  theatre  for  a  se- 
ries of  years.  I  recall  my  ecstasy  in  wit- 
nessing these  dramas,  in  order  that  my 
contemporaries  may  reglow  and  rethrill 
with  me  over  the  reminiscence.  It  is  of  no 
use  to  tell  me,  to  tell  any  of  us,  that  chil- 
dren enjoy  themselves  as  much  at  the  the- 
atrical shows  of  to-day  as  we  enjoyed  our- 
selves at  the  plays  of  circa  1850.   And  I 

[    7    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


hold  to  my  opinion,  not  only  or  chiefly  be- 
cause modern  children  are  as  biases  and 
skeptical  as  everybody  else  knows  and  they 
themselves  frankly  concede  them  to  be, 
but  because  there  is  almost  no  provision 
made  for  them  in  modern  American  thea- 
tres. For  aught  I  know,  the  Christmas 
pantomime  still  lingers  in  Great  Britain. 
But  to-day,  in  this  land,  —  is  it  not  curi- 
ous ?  —  adults  are  so  greedy  of  the  theatre 
that  they  have  practically  crowded  children 
out  of  places  of  theatrical  amusement. 
There  are  no  Arabian  Nights  entertain- 
ments or  "  fairy  plays  "  provided  now  as 
incidents  of  the  theatric  year,  aimed  di- 
rectly at  the  e3^es  and  hearts  of  ingenuous 
childhood.  Our  children  participate  in  for-^ 
mulated  aesthetic  shows  occasionally,  clad 
in  correct  costumes,  doing  appropriate 
dances ;  and  some  of  them,  when  they 
have  attained  their  teens,  are  taken  to  see 
innocuous  comedies,  revived  at  the  Cas- 
tle Square  Theatre  from  long  desuetude. 

[    8    ] 


THE   STAGE  FIFTY  YEARS   AGO 

But  what  do  any  of  them  know  of  the 
wild  joys  which  thrilled  our  little  breasts 
when  The  Enchanted  Horse,  The  En- 
chanted Beauty,  The  Forty  Thieves,  The 
Children  of  Cyprus,  and  Aladdin  possessed 
the  fairyland  of  the  stage  ?  I  recall  per- 
fectly, and  can  now  analyze,  the  mixed 
conditions  of  my  spirit  at  those  entertain- 
ments. All  was  real  and  true,  just  because 
it  was  far  away  and  romantic.  The  "  cloud- 
cuckoo-land  "  of  the  imagination  was  the 
native  heath  of  the  healthy  child  of  that 
day.  And  well  I  remember  how  tame, 
unimportant,  and  unnatural  the  characters 
appeared  to  me  in  The  Drunkard,  —  to 
which  I  was  taken  for  ethical  reasons,  no 
doubt,  when  it  was  produced  at  the  Mu- 
seum, —  in  contrast  with  the  glorious,  vital, 
and  convincing  figures  of  AH  Baba,  Cogia 
Houssam,  and  Morgiana,  of  Cherry  and 
Fair  Star,  so  done  into  English  from  the 
French  Cheri  and  Belle  Etoile.  It  was  in 
The  Children  of  Cyprus  that  I  first  saw 

C    9    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


and  heard  Adelaide  Phillipps,  a  young  girl 
and  a  novice,  but  wonderfully  easy  and 
melodious  in  the  garnish  of  the  boy  hero, 
Cherry  ;  and  in  The  Forty  Thieves  I  had 
my  first  view  of  William  Warren,  who 
impersonated  Mustapha,  the  cheerful  cob- 
bler, whose  delicate  professional  job  it  was 
to  sew  together  the  severed  sections  of  a 
human  trunk. 

Only  a  little  later  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin 
was  dramatized,  and  took  possession  of 
the  stage  in  the  Northern  States.  The 
theatre,  which  never  recognizes  or  sees 
any  public  movement  that  is  not  on  the 
surface  of  the  life  of  the  community,  had 
not  dreamed  of  the  great  anti-slavery  sen- 
timent which  had  been  growing  *like  the 
substance  of  an  avalanche  for  twenty  years. 
The  only  slaves  known  to  the  stage  had 
been  the  sprightly  young  darky,  nimble  in 
jig  and  breakdown,  and  the  ragged,  obese 
old  grayhead,  exuberant  of  and  as  to  ham 
and  'possum  fat ;  and  both  these  colored 

[    lo   J 


THE    STAGE   FIFTY  YEARS    AGO 

men  had  celebrated,  in  songs  and  dances 
set  to  the  foot-tilting  banjo,  their  perfect 
happiness  on  "  de  olc  plantation."  And 
then,  as  in  a  moment,  like  lightning  from 
a  supposedly  clear  sky.  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin 
descended  upon  the  boards,  and  they  in- 
stantly and  eloquently  echoed  the  woes 
and  wrongs  of  the  oppressed.  I  strongly 
suspect  that  the  play  was  quite  unworthy 
of  the  novel  ;  but  the  humor,  fire,  and  pas- 
sion of  the  story  swept  ever}^thing  before 
them.  Mr.  Warren  appeared  at  the  Mu- 
seum performance  of  the  drama  in  a  char- 
acter, interpolated  chiefly  for  purposes  of 
farcical  mirth,  entitled  Penetrate  Partyside, 
—  a  cool,  shrewd  Yankee,  with  advanced 
political  opinions  concerning  "the  peculiar 
institution,"  —  and  this  part  was  played  by 
the  comedian  two  hundred  and  forty-eight 
times  ;  leading,  in  frequenc}'  of  perform- 
ance, all  the  other  characters  in  his  vast 
repertory,  even  to  the  hour  of  his  retire- 
ment from  the   stage.    Mr.   Frank  Whit- 

[    ^i    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 

man,  an  actor  with  a  natural  touch  and  a 
gift  in  pathos,  was  Uncle  Tom  when  I  saw 
the  play  ;  Miss  Gaszynski,  who  had  been 
doing  pas  seuls  and  other  dances  between 
pieces,  and  had  been  promoted  to  be  Topsy, 
made  a  remarkable  hit,  and  was  said  to 
have  won  a  desirable  husband  by  the  ec- 
centric drollery  of  her  impersonation  \  and 
Mrs.  Vincent,  then  a  slim  and  swift  young 
woman,  was  a  flaming  and,  by  the  familiar 
law  of  nerve  calorics,  blood-chilling  Gassy. 
It  is  worth  noting  that  the  playwright  did 
not  then  dare  to  risk  the  popularity  of  his 
work  by  repeating  the  final  tragedy  of  the 
novel,  and  that  the  drama  closed  with  the 
rescue  of  Uncle  Tom  by  George  Shelby 
from  the  murderous  hands  of  Legree. 
Through  all  the  curious  fluctuations  in 
public  taste  during  fifty  years,  the  play 
keeps  the  stage  to  this  day,  having  suf- 
fered shameful  misuse  in  some  quarters, 
and  depending  upon  packs  of  real  blood- 
hounds, and    upon    "  star   combinations  " 

[    ^2    ] 


THE    STAGE   FIFTY   YEARS   AGO 

with  two  Evas,  two  Topsies,  two  Uncle 
Toms,  and  the  like. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing  farces 
were  greatly  in  vogue,  and,  indeed,  were 
favorite  side  dishes  upon  theatrical  bills 
of  fare  during  the  entire  half  century  which 
ended  with  1880.  They  had  a  definite 
place  in  the  dramatic  literature  of  the  pe- 
riod, and  may  be  said  to  have  constituted 
an  order  or  variety  of  that  literature.  Some 
of  them,  such  as  Lend  Me  Five  Shillings, 
which  Mr.  Jefferson  yet  plays.  To  Paris 
and  Back  for  Five  Pounds,  and  A  Phe- 
nomenon in  a  Smock  Frock,  were  obvi- 
ous and  confessed  translations  from  the 
French  ;  and  scores  of  others  were  stolen 
from  Parisian  playwrights,  the  marvelously 
fertile  Augustin  Eugene  Scribe  being  the 
prime  source  of  supply.  But  the  English 
adaptations  were  of  remarkable  freedom 
and  force,  and  often  took  on  a  flavor  of 
their  own  which  gave  them  almost  the 
quality  and  value  of  original  works.    Box 

C  13  ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


/        fC^  ^^^ 


^-7-     sS^aiJ  ^'^^  Cox,  and  Poor  Pillicoddy,  are  good 

"^     '       v^^^  .:         examples  in  this  kind. 

,      •  I  find  it  hard  to  account  for  the  ahnost 

complete  extinction  of  this  sort  of  play  ; 
^'  r.. , ..,;..  or  rather,  for  its  relegation  to  the  "  amateur 
stage."  The  faults  of  the  farces  are  and 
were  obvious.  They  treated  life  with  a  cer- 
tain bluntness  and  abruptness,  and  some- 
times were  coarse  in  a  frank,  quasi-Eliza- 
bethan fashion.  But  the  best  of  them 
not  only  effervesced,  overflowed,  crackled, 
and  scintillated  with  humor  and  wit,  but 
also  displayed  common  human  faults  and 
failings,  sometimes  the  usual  contrete7n-ps 
of  existence,  with  delightful  vividness  and 
shrewdness.  In  some  the  fun  began  with 
the  first  word,  and  did  not  fail  till  the 
curtain  fell.  They  were  invariably  good- 
natured.  The  most  striking  of  them  pro- 
ceeded upon  a  perfectly  formulated  theory 
of  presenting  familiar  weaknesses  in  the 
mode  of  true  caricature  ;  that  is  to  say,  by 
comical  exaggeration,  always  on  the  lines 

[    H    ] 


THE   STAGE   FIFTY  YEARS   AGO 

of  the  truth  of  Hfe.  As  long  as  they  were 
played  they  provoked  an  immense  amount 
of  wholesome  and  happy  laughter.  The 
most  serious  actors  —  even  the  leaders  of 
the  Booth  family  —  did  not  disdain  to  ap- 
pear in  them,  and  the  greatest  comedians 
of  the  nineteenth  century  —  Blake,  Burton, 
Clarke,  Owens,  Gilbert,  Warren,  and  the 
Mathewses  —  were  largely  known  to  fame 
through  the  impersonation  of  the  best  far- 
cical characters.  At  William  Warren's 
famous  "benefits,"  —  of  which  there  were 
four  per  annum  for  many  years  in  the 
Boston  Museum,  —  a  programme  which 
had  not  at  least  one  farce  was  seldom  pre- 
sented ;  and  1  recall  some  of  that  come- 
dian's "benefit"  nights  in  which  the  bill 
consisted  merely  of  five  farces. 

The  king  of  the  English  writers  or 
adapters  of  these  dramas  was  John  Mad- 
ison Morton,  and  somewhat  below  him 
were  J.  B.  Buckstone  and  T.  J.  Wil- 
liams.    Morton's    Box    and    Cox,    Betsy 

[    15    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


Baker,  Poor  Pillicoddy,  and  A  Regular 
Fix  and  Williams's  Ici  On  Parle  Fran- 
9ais,  deserve,  I  am  sure,  a  narrow  little 
niche,  into  which  they  can  be  squeezed 
together,  in  the  Temple  of  Fame.  The 
most  famous  passage  in  the  first  of  these 
pieces  is  worthy  of  Plautus :  — 

''Box.  Ah,  tell  me,  in  mercy  tell  me: 
have  you  a  strawberry  mark  on  your  left 
arm  ? 

"  Cox.    No. 

"  Box.  Then  it  is  he,  —  my  long-lost 
brother." 

And  Jane  Austen  herself — she  of  the 
pretty  taste  in  fools,  and  the  unsurpassed 
gift  of  producing  them  in  her  novels  — 
would  have  rejoiced  to  make  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  ineffable  Mrs.  Toodles,  who 
bought  an  inscribed  doorplate  at  an  auc- 
tion, because  (to  quote  her  words  to  her 
husband)  "  we  may  have  a  daughter,  and 
that  daughter  may  be  a  female  and  live 
to  the  age  of  maturity,  and  she  may  marry 

[    i6    ] 


THE   STAGE   FIFTY  YEARS   AGO 

a  man  of  the  name  of  Thompson,  —  with 
a  P,  —  and  then  how  handy  it  will  be  to 
have  it  in  the  house !  " 

At  the  time  when  my  service  as  dra- 
matic critic  began,  the  negro  minstrel 
show,  descended,  with  some  crossing  of 
the  stock,  from  Christy's  Minstrels  of 
New  York  and  Ord way's  ^olian  Vocal-  ■■^''-^a^ 

ists  of  Boston,  was  in  a  failing  condition.  '-^ 

I  mean,  of  course,  the  entertainment  of  .j^to  e^' ^  I 
that  order  which  was  fixed  "  in  residence," 
as  Shakespeare  would  say,  and  accepted 
as  a  constant  and  necessary  form  of  pub- 
lic amusement.  Morris  Brothers,  Pell  and 
Trowbridge  still  had  their  own  little  the- 
atre in  Province  Court,  and  there,  on  every 
evening  and  two  afternoons  of  the  week, 
dispensed  their  broad,  highly  accentuated 
fun  and  heavily  treacled  sentiment.  Both 
the  fun  and  the  sentiment  seem  in  the 
retrospect  rather  rudimentary  and  raw; 
yet  it  would  be  absurd  to  deny  that  the 
vein  of  feeling  which  Stephen  C.  Foster 

[    17    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


and  the  best  of  his  sort  worked  was  of 
genuine  gold,  though  as  thin,  perhaps,  as 
the  petal  of  the  cotton  blossoin,  or  that 
the  negro  minstrel  drolleries  sometiines 
had  a  contagious  jollity  and  a  rich  unction 
which  were  all  their  own. 

This  was  the  period,  also,  of  the  first 
prevalence  of  the  "variety  show;"  the 
Howard  Athenaeum,  which  had  had  an 
experience  of  more  variety  than  any  other 
piece  of  inasonry  in  the  city  of  Boston, 
being  appropriately  dedicated  to  the  new 
programme.  This  "  show  "  was  the  foun- 
tain head  —  or  rather,  the  beginning  —  of 
all  that  kind  of  theatrical  entertainment 
which  now  goes  by  the  trebly  absurd  and 
grossly  misdescriptive  name  of  "  vaude- 
ville." Indeed,  there  is  neither  distinction 
nor  difference  between  the  entertainments 
with  the  two  titles.  "  Vaudeville  "  is  only 
"  variety  "  "  writ  large  "  and  grown  fashion- 
able.   The  later  show  has  merely  a  bigger 


[    i8    ] 


THE   STAGE   FIFTY  YEARS   AGO 

bill  of  fare,  chiefly  through  its  use  of  the 
contrivances  of  modern  science.  To  the 
vocal  and  instrumental  solo,  the  dance, 
the  song  and  dance,  the  stump  speech  or 
monologue,  the  one-act  drama,  sentimental 
or  comic,  the  dialogue,  generally  in  dia- 
lect, of  the  two  funny  men,  feats  of  acro- 
bats and  jugglers,  and  the  deeds  of  per- 
forming dogs  —  all  of  which  were  of  the 
old  regime  —  are  now  added  the  wonders 
of  the  kinetoscope  and  the  biograph.  And 
this  congeries  furnishes  the  amusement 
which  at  present  about  equally  divides 
with  the  regular  theatre  the  public  patron- 
age, counting  its  daily  spectators  in  Bos- 
ton by  double  thousands.  It  is  good  to  be 
able  to  believe  that  the  public's  morals  are 
not  jeoparded  by  the  prevailing  taste,  and 
good  to  be  assured  that  the  overtaxed 
public's  mind  and  overwrought  public's 
nerves  are  rested  and  soothed  by  "  the 
vaudeville."   Also,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 

[    19    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


this  use  of  mild  sedatives  in  the  form  of 
amusement  will  not  be  so  extensive  and 
long  continued  as  seriously  to  soften  the 
gray  matter  of  the  public's  brain. 


Ivv 


A 


I 


/ 


-Ah 


[     20     ] 


Ill 


The  Worth  and  Impotence  of  Free 
Criticism 


A 


S  a  part  of  an  already  too  long  intro- 
duction, it  is  right  that  I  should 
say  a  brief  but  emphatic  word  as 
to  the  freedom  which  was  accorded  me 
by  the  managers  and  editors  of  the  Ad- 
vertiser. That  freedom  was  perfect  at  the 
outset,  and  was  never  limited  or  dimin- 
ished. The  value  of  such  liberty  to  a  pub- 
lic critic  is  incalculably  great;  the  lack  of 
it  to  an  honest  and  earnest  man  in  that 
vocation  is  like  the  lack  of  wholesome 
air  to  human  lungs.  It  was  years  before 
I  fully  appreciated  my  privilege  in  this 
kind,  or  realized  how  much  happier  was 
my  lot  than  that  of  some  of  my  profes- 
sional brethren.    The  ideally  perfect  dra- 

[      21      ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


matic  critic  must  always  be,  even  in 
Paris,  London,  and  New  York,  a  rara 
avis.  The  man  whose  equipment  includes 
a  good  working  familiarity  with  the  clas- 
sic and  modern  languages;  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  all  English  literature, 
and  with  all  that  is  most  important  in 
other  literatures;  a  long  experience  with 
the  theatre;  a  high  and  varied  skill  in 
writing;  honesty  of  purpose  and  complete 
emancipation  from  mean  personal  preju- 
dice; and,  finally,  the  faculty,  inborn,  and, 
though  highly  susceptible  of  cultivation, 
never  to  be  acquired,  of  detecting  false 
touches  in  acting  as  the  perfect  ear  detects 
false  tones  in  music,  —  even  the  late  bril- 
liant, accomplished,  and  unimpeachable 
Sarcey  did  not  fill  the  area  of  that  defini- 
tion. Yet  if  such  an  Admirable  Crichton 
existed,  he  would  not  be  effective  on  the 
staff  of  a  newspaper  which  in  any  way 
or  at  any  point,  for  commercial  or  any 
reasons,  cabined,  cribbed,  or  confined  him; 

[      22      ] 


IMPOTENCE    OF  FREE   CRITICISM 

hinting  here,  coaxing  there,  anon  under- 
taking to  give  instructions  as  to  his  meting 
out  of  praise  or  blame.  I  have  known 
many  critics,  and  of  the  entire  number 
have  known  but  one  whom  I  beHeved  to 
be  capable  of  corruption  in  his  high  office. 
They  were,  and  are,  as  square  a  set  of 
men  as  ever  lived.  But  some  of  them 
were  hampered  and  handicapped  by  their 
employers,  and  came  short  of  rendering 
the  best  service  to  the  public  because  of 
counting-room  pressure  in  favor  of  liber- 
ally advertising  theatres,  or  against  the- 
atres whose  patronage  was  less  valuable. 
Sometimes  it  has  happened,  also,  —  though 
seldom  anywhere,  I  suppose,  and  oftener 
in  New  York  than  Boston,  —  that  among 
the  actors  there  were  friends  or  foes  of 
editors  in  chief  or  of  owners,  with  the 
shameful  consequence  that  the  critic  was 
bidden  to  be  "  a  respecter  of  persons," 
and  at  the    same    time   instructed   to    be 

[    23    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


crafty  not  to  betray  the  secret  of  his  par- 
tiality. 

The  newspapers  whose  criticism  of  the 
drama  is  thus  sordidly  biased  are  soon 
found  out,  and  lose  all  or  much  of  their 
influence  with  their  readers.  And  having 
made  this  big  declaration  in  the  interest  of 
reason  and  common  sense,  I  must  meekly 
subject  it  to  a  discount  of  about  seventy- 
five  per  cent,  and  confess  that  a  large 
majority  of  all  the  persons  who  read  the 
daily  journals  have  not  the  faintest  notion 
of  comparing  or  distinguishing  the  values 
of  various  censures.  The  great  body  of 
patrons  of  the  theatre  are,  indeed,  alike 
indifferent  and,  directly,  impervious  to 
criticism  of  any  sort;  they  swarm  into 
the  playhouses  with  an  indiscriminating 
eagerness  of  desire,  which  seems  as  mas- 
terful as  the  blind  instinct  that  compels 
the  migration  of  schools  of  fish;  they  are 
laws  unto  themselves,  and  find  out  and 


[    H    ] 


IMPOTENCE    OF  FREE   CRITICISM 

applaud  what  they  like  by  the  application 
of  those  laws,  some  of  which  have  roots 
which  run  far  down  into  our  common  psy- 
chic protoplasm.  The  judicious  remain- 
der—  absolutely  large  in  numbers,  though 
comparatively  few  —  constitute  the  body 
to  which  the  critic  appeals,  through  which, 
by  processes  of  slow  filtration,  he  may 
hope  to  make  some  indirect  impression 
for  good  upon  the  vast  mass  of  humanity 
that  fills  the  theatres  night  after  night, 
week  after  week.  If  this  statement  seems 
cynical,  the  reader  is  requested  to  consider 
the  situation  in  a  kindred  matter,  and  to 
note  that  three  quarters  of  the  general 
perusal  of  contemporary  books  is  utterly 
uninfluenced  by  any  kind  of  literary  criti- 
cism. The  huge  public  which  revels  in 
the  novels,  for  example,  of  "  Albert  Ross  " 
and  Mrs.  Mary  J.  Holmes  knows  no  more 
about  book  notices  than  it  knows  about 
the  Eddas.    As  far  as  that  public  is  con- 

[    25    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


cerned,  the  critical  journals,  magazines, 
and  reviews  might  as  well  be  printed  in 
Russian  as  in  English,  as  well  be  published 
in  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow  as  in  New 
York  and  Boston. 


[    26    ] 


IV 

Some  Early  Experiences  and 
Mistakes 

I  HAVE  said  a  single  word  about  the 
earnestness  with  which  I  entered  upon 
my  critical  profession.  That  earnest- 
ness, honest  though  it  was,  moved  me  to 
pursue  a  course  one  line  of  which  I  much 
regret.  It  was  the  day  of  resident  stock 
companies,  and  the  critic  was  confronted 
weekly,  during  a  whole  season,  with  the 
same  players.  Some  of  these  actors  — 
leaders  in  their  troupe  and  others —  I  found 
to  be  faulty,  "  retrograde  "  to  all  my  artistic 
"  desire,"  and  therefore  fit  subjects  for  un- 
favorable comment.  There  was  one  vari- 
ety in  particular  with  which  I  could  not, 
and  cannot,  be  patient  :  namely,  the  hard, 
dry,  hyperemphatic  sort,  usually  feminine 

[    27   J 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


in  gender,  whose  words  come  out,  edged 
and  clanging,  as  if  they  were  disks  of 
metal,  cut  and  ejected  by  a  machine.  Dur- 
ing a  considerable  period,  beginning  with 
1870,  there  was  an  irruption  upon  the  stage 
of  players  of  this  kind  ;  Miss  Fanny  Mo- 
rant,  of  New  York,  a  highly  gifted  actress, 
whose  personal  force  carried  all  before  it, 
being,  I  strongly  suspect,  the  model  whom 
they  caricatured.  There  was  also  a  bois- 
terous-slouchy  masculine  mode,  which  I 
almost  equally  disrelished.  But  I  am  sin- 
cerely sorry  that  I  found  it  necessary  to 
pursue  such,  or  any,  of  the  regularly  ap- 
pearing players  with  reiterated  disapproval. 
I  ought  to  have  made  clear  in  a  general 
way  my  opinion  of  the  faultiness  of  the 
actor's  method,  and  occasionally,  but  not 
often,  have  briefly  reapplied  my  foot  rule 
to  show  his  particular  shortcomings  in  a 
new  part.  I  look  back  and  admire  the  dig- 
nified, patient  silence  in  which  these  play- 
ers, with  scarcely  an  exception,  bore  a  fre- 

C    28    ] 


EXPERIENCES   AND   MISTAKES 


quent  application  of  the  lash  at  the  hands 
of  many  writers,  of  whom  I  was  one.  In- 
cessant fault-finding,  just  or  unjust,  is  sel- 
dom good  for  anybody,  because  it  either 
sets  up  in  its  victim  a  condition  of  nervous 
irritability,  which  defeats  or  impedes  im- 
provement, or  produces  in  him  a  calloused 
or  defiant  indifference. 

Early  in  my  professional  experience  I 
committed  a  gross  extravagance  in  lauda- 
tion. Mrs.  Scott-Siddons  made  her  first 
appearance  as  a  reader  in  the  Music  Hall, 
when  she  was  in  her  twenty-sixth  year. 
Many  Bostonians  lost  their  heads  on  the 
occasion.  I  infer  from  a  reperusal  of  my 
notices  of  her  work  that  I  was  one  of  those 
Bostonians.  Her  beauty  was  of  a  very  ra- 
diant, rare,  and  exquisite  sort.  It  seems  to 
me  that  I  recall  that  her  ease  and  aplomb 
of  manner,  as  in  her  sole  small  person  she 
took  possession  of  the  huge  desert  of  a 
stage,  and  serenely  occupied  with  her  desk 
a  small  oasis  therein,  impressed  me  even 

[   29   ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


more  than  her  beauty.  I  incHne  to  think 
that  she  really  did  read  pretty  well  ;  in- 
deed, I  am  sure  that  she  read  Tennyson's 
Lad}^  Clara  Vere  de  Vere  uncommonly 
well.  But  I  now  perceive  that  there  was 
no  reason  for  my  speaking  of  her  and  the 
great  Sarah  Siddons,  her  great-grandmo- 
ther, in  the  same  breath,  or  even  in  the 
same  week.  A  little  later  I  received  a 
punishment  which  fitted  my  blunder,  when 
she  essayed  acting,  and  I  was  obliged  to 
comment  on  her  performance.  Yet  that 
she  could  not  act  does  not  prove  that  she 
could  not  read.  Many  excellent  readers 
have  failed  utterly  upon  the  stage;  -per 
contra^  a  few  fine  actors  have  not  been 
acceptable  as  readers.  But  if  one  could 
have  heard  Mrs.  Scott-Siddons  through 
one's  eyes,  they  would  have  been  "  worth 
all  the  rest "  of  the  senses,  and  her  playing 
would  have  seemed  peerless. 

Many  of  my  readers  will  be  surprised 
and  amused  to  learn  that  every  decent, 

[   30   ] 


EXPERIENCES   AND   MISTAKES 

outspoken  critic  raises  up  against  himself 
a  bod}'  of  hostile  unprofessionals,  princi- 
pally of  the  more  excitable  sex,  —  strong 
in  numbers,  too,  if  weak  in  brain,  —  to 
whom  he  \s persona  excessively  ?ion g-rata, 
simply  because  he  has  dispraised,  or  even 
not  sufficiently  praised,  their  favorite  per- 
former. There  is  something  deliciously 
droll,  and  something  rather  touching,  in 
such  partisanship,  inasmuch  as  the  allies 
are,  as  a  rule,  strangers  to  the  actor,  who 
is  therefore  the  object  of  their  distant  and 
purely  disinterested  cult,  and  also  is  usually 
a  player  of  no  great  reputation.  There  is 
not  a  critic  of  a  prominent  daily  newspaper 
who  does  not  occasionally  note  the  scowl- 
ing brows  and  basilisk  glances  of  strangers 
who  detest  him  for  his  disparagement  of 
some  one,  —  he  can  seldom  guess  whom. 
Boston  is  of  all  large  American  cities  the 
one  in  which  such  cherishers  of  sentiment 
are  rife,  because  it  is  the  most  ebulliently 
naive  of  all  American  cities  in  its  passion 

[    31    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


for  the  theatre.  Not  very  long  ago,  I 
learned  that  I  was  in  the  black  book  of 
every  member  of  a  certain  respectable 
family,  because  of  my  "  attitude  "  toward 
a  histrionic  artist  whom  they  one  and  all 
admired.  I  had  seldom  seen  the  gentleman 
play,  and  had  commented  on  him  but  three 
times :  once  with  definite  disapproval,  once 
with  mild  objection,  once  with  faint  praise, 
—  thus  thrice  writing  myself  down  a  per- 
jured knave. 


[    32    ] 


V 

Selwyn's  Theatre  and  the  Robert- 
son Period 

IN  1870  there  were  only  five  theatres 
in  Boston,  and  the  price  of  the  best 
reserved  seats  varied  from  seventy- 
five  cents  to  one  dollar.  The  advance  in 
public  demand  for  theatrical  amusement 
in  this  city  may  be  inferred  both  from  the 
present  number  of  our  theatres,  which  is 
fifteen,  and  from  the  doubling  of  the  charge 
for  places  in  houses  of  the  highest  grade. 
In  that  year  the  wave  of  excitement  caused 
by  the  opening  of  Selwyn's  Theatre,  after- 
wards known  as  the  Globe,  was  just  begin- 
ning to  subside.  The  establishment  of  the 
new  house  had  been  regarded  as  a  great 
event,  and  the  merits  of  its  first  three 
stock  companies  —  of  which  Mrs.  Chan- 

C    33    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


frau,  Miss  Carson,  Miss  Mary  Cary,  Mrs. 
Thomas  Barry,  Miss  Harris,  Miss  Kitty 
Blanchard,  Mrs.  Wilkins,  Miss  Wells,  Miss 
Fanny  Morant,  Mrs.  E.  L.  Davenport,  and 
Messrs.  Frederic  Robinson,  Stuart  Rob- 
son,  C.  H.  Vandenhoff,  H.  S.  Murdoch, 
W.  J.  Le  Moyne,  G.  H.  Griffiths,  Harry 
Pearson,  H.  F.  Daly,  and  Harry  Josephs 
were,  at  different  times,  members,  —  were, 
it  might  almost  be  said,  the  chief  theme 
of  Boston's  table-talk.  The  theatre's  ini- 
tial experiment  had  been  made  with  La 
Famille  Benoiton  of  Sardou,  played  under 
the  name  of  The  Fast  Family  ;  but  the 
triumphs  of  its  first  season  were  won 
with  three  curiously  contrasted  dramas, 
of  which  two  are  now  unknown  to  the 
public  stage,  and  the  third  is  seldom  seen 
in  this  country.  These  three  were,  Dora, 
a  very  free  dramatic  version,  proceeding 
from  the  pen  of  Charles  Reade,  of  Tenny- 
son's brief  idyl  of  the  same  name  ;  The 
Spirit  of  '76,  a  comedietta,  by  Mrs.  Daniel 

[    34    ] 


SELWYN'S  THEATRE 


Sargent  Curtis  ;  and  Robertson's  Ours. 
All  the  theatre-going  population  of  Bos- 
ton—  then  about  half  the  population  of 
Boston  —  went  wild  over  Dora,  a  purling 
piece,  surface-ruffled  only  by  Farmer  Al- 
len's tyrannical  self-will  and  honest  obsti- 
nacy, which  were  presented  with  heavy- 
handed  effectiveness  by  Mr.  Robinson.  It 
was  Dora  herself,  the  gentle,  persuasive 
Dora,  the  rustic  but  not  rude,  the  meek 
but  not  insipid,  —  beautiful,  sweet,  sound- 
hearted  to  the  core,  like  some  perfect  fruit 
ripened  in  a  sunny  nook  of  an  English 
garden,  —  it  was  this  Dora  that  prevailed 
with  everybody,  in  the  person  of  Mrs.  F. 
S.  Chanfrau,  whose  style  was  as  frank 
and  unaffected  as  her  face  was  lovely, 
her  voice  melodious,  her  manner  gracious. 
Reread,  the  last  sentence  seems  to  me  to 
be  lightly  touched  with  enthusiasm.  But 
I  decline  to  qualify  or  to  apologize.  Dora 
has  passed  away,  and  Mrs.  Chanfrau  has 
quitted   the  stage.    Dora  had   no  special 

[    35    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


right  to  live,  I  suppose,  but  nothing  could 
make  me  doubt  that,  with  the  actress  of 
thirty  years  ago  to  play  the  leading  part, 
the  drama  would  captivate  sensitive  hearts 
to-day  ;  and  as  to  this  declaration,  I  put 
myself  upon  a  jury  of  my  peers,  —  recog- 
nizing as  my  peers,  for  this  purpose,  only 
such  persons  as  distinctly  remember  the 
play  and  its  chief  player. 

Mrs.  Curtis's  drama.  The  Spirit  of  '76, 
deserves  to  be  recalled  not  only  for  its 
piquant  wit,  but  because  of  the  interest 
attaching  to  its  prophetic  character.  It 
was  in  form  a  delicate  burlesque,  but  its 
plot  and  dialogue  were  underborne  by  a 
thoughtful,  conservative  purpose.  Pro- 
duced in  1868,  the  play  was  a  fanciful 
picture  in  anticipation  of  our  corner  of 
the  United  States  in  1876,  the  political  and 
economic  relations  of  the  sexes  having 
been  precisely  inverted  ad  interim.  None 
of  the  more  extravagant  visions  have  any- 
where come  even  partly  true,  except  in 

[    36   ] 


SELWYN'S   THEATRE 


Colorado  and  the  three  other  sparsely 
populated  gynecratic  states.  Massachu- 
setts is  not  yet  ruled  by  a  "governess;" 
there  are  no  women  on  its  supreme  bench, 
and  none  sit  in  its  jury  boxes;  it  has  thus 
far  escaped  a  law  which  makes  it  a  felony 
for  an  unmarried  man  to  decline  an  un- 
married woman's  offer  of  marriage.  But 
Mrs.  Curtis's  adumbration  of  some  less 
violent  but  highly  significant  changes  was 
remarkable.  She  really  predicted,  in  the 
next  sequent  generation  of  young  women, 
that  union  of  virile  athleticism  and  sopho- 
moric  abandon  which  makes  the  manners 
of  the  twentieth-century  girl  so  engaging. 
Ours,  by  T.  W.  Robertson,  was  pro- 
duced at  Selwyn's  in  the  spring  of  1868, 
and  was  succeeded,  in  1869,  by  School, 
My  Lady  Clara,  and  The  Nightingale,  by 
the  same  playwright;  and  within  a  few 
months,  on  either  side  of  these  two  years, 
David  Garrick,  Society,  Caste,  Play,  Home, 
War,  and  The  M.  P.  were  given  at  most  of 

[    37    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


the  leading  theatres  of  the  country.  The 
period  from  1867  to  1877  might,  with  a 
decent  show  of  propriety,  be  called  the 
T.  W.  Robertsonian  decade  of  the  drama 
in  America.  In  England  the  Robertsonian 
reign  stretched  out  for  twenty  years  or 
more.  The  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  de- 
clared, in  1886,  that  his  "  popularity  showed 
no  sign  of  waning."  The  author's  life 
was  embraced  between  1829  and  187 1, 
and  he  knew  not  his  first  taste  of  success 
till  seven  years  before  his  death.  Of  the 
dramas  mentioned  above,  only  The  Night- 
ingale and  War  met  with  failure.  David 
Garrick,  Home,  and  Caste  were  much  the 
best  of  the  series,  and,  of  these,  the  first 
two  had  been  brazenly  —  or  perhaps,  just 
frankly  —  plagiarized  from  the  continent 
of  Europe;  Home  being  a  loose  version 
of  L'Aventuriere  of  Emile  Augier.  David 
Garrick  lends  itself  to  the  needs  of  rising 
"  stars,"  and  seems  to  be  booked  for  a 
stage   immortality,  the   span  of  which  is 

[    38    ] 


SELWYN'S   THEATRE 


that  of  the  life  of  man,  to  wit,  threescore 
and  ten  years,  or,  if  the  play  be  very 
strong,  fourscore  years.  That  some  of 
the  other  dramas  die  hard  is  undeniable. 
Caste  leads  in  limpet  ability  to  cling  to 
life.  School  is  "  revived  "  every  now  and 
then  for  a  few  hours,  but  soon  resumes  its 
slumbers.  Yet,  with  the  exceptions  noted, 
all  these  plays,  as  far  as  the  public  stage 
of  this  country  is  concerned,  are  dead  or 
at  their  last  gasp.  It  is  curious  to  think 
either  of  their  life  or  of  their  death,  of 
the  life  and  death  of  hundreds  of  their 
contemporaries  and  near  successors.  Al- 
bery?  Yates?  Charles  Reade?  Simpson? 
Tom  Taylor?  Henry  J.  Byron?  What, 
what  has  become  of  all  their  lavish  waste  of 
dramatic  words?  Even  Still  Waters  Run 
Deep  —  whose  plot  Mr.  Tom  Taylor  did 
cheerfully  "  convey,"  as  "  the  wise  it  call," 
from  Le  Gendre  of  Charles  de  Bernard  — 
is  a  forgotten  demi-semi  classic.  Byron's 
Our  Boys  seems  to  have  some  of  the  salt 

[   39   ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


of  youth  in  it;  but  his  £100,000,  Cyril's 
Success,  and  Our  Girls,  all  of  which  were 
greatly  in  vogue  for  a  considerable  time 
after  their  production,  have  gone  into  the 
"  Ewigkeit,"  with  the  lager  beer  of  Hans 
Breitmann's  "  barty."  Looking  back  at 
my  notice  of  Cyril's  Success,  I  see  that  I 
absurdly  likened  the  wit  of  the  comedy 
to  that  of  The  Rivals;  but  Byron's  play 
is  as  dead  as  Scrooge's  partner,  while 
Sheridan's  is  good  for  another  century, 
at  least. 


[  40  3 


VI 

The  Ephemeral  Drama  and  the 
Enduring  Drama 

INDEED,  of  all  the  big  crowd  of 
English  playrights  who  produced  dra- 
mas, always  with  extreme  facility  and 
sometimes  with  contemporaneous  success, 
between  1845  and  1875,  —  excepting,  of 
course.  Sir  Edward  Bulwer-Lytton,  — 
every  man  but  Robertson  is  to-day  practi- 
cally obsolete.  Not  a  single  one  of  their 
works  has  a  name  that  will  survive  the  first 
quarter  of  this  centur}'^,  unless  it  be  a  sur- 
vival to  be  embalAied  and  entombed  in  an 
encyclopaedia.  By  1925  the  stage  that  knew 
these  dramas  will  know  them  no  more, 
and  Time  will  have  allowed  their  claims 
for  recognition  as  literature  by  impartially 
pitching  them  all  into  his  dust  heap. 

[    41    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


That  Robertson's  comedies  should  be 
the  last  to  succumb  to  this  remorseless 
rule  of  death  is  interesting.  Their  texture 
is  of  the  flimsiness  of  gossamer;  their  wit 
usually  consists  of  quaint  equivoque ;  their 
wisdom  is  trite;  their  humor,  often  de- 
licious in  flavor,  trickles  in  a  thin  and 
narrow  stream;  their  passion,  except  for 
a  few  minutes  in  Caste,  has  neither  depth 
nor  blaze.  But  they  showed  the  work  of 
a  deft  hand  in  their  eflfective  situations; 
they  had  a  grace  and  charm  of  their  own, 
which  made  them  cling  to  the  memory  as 
tenaciously  as  the  fragrance  of  lavender 
clings  to  gloves  and  laces ;  and  they  were 
often  in  touch  with  life,  though  the  touch 
never  became  a  grasp.  Again,  a  special 
word  is  to  be  said  for  Caste,  which  dealt 
finely,  if  not  profoundly,  with  the  never 
ceasing  strain  between  the  freedom  of 
man  as  an  individual  and  his  bondage  as 
a  member  of  society.  Nearly  all  these 
plays,  also,  displayed,  after  a  fashion  pe- 

[    42    ] 


THE   EPHEMERAL    DRAMA 

culiar  to  their  author,  the  familiar  con- 
trasts between  generosity  and  meanness, 
simplicity  and  sophistication,  the  self-for- 
getting impulsiveness  of  youth  and  the 
self-cherishing  deliberation  of  middle  age. 
Robertson  loved  to  point  such  compari- 
sons by  means  of  bits  of  dialogue,  carried 
on  at  opposite  sides  of  the  stage  by  pairs 
of  persons,  neither  pair  being  conscious 
of  the  other.  The  mode  of  many  of  these 
passages  was  distinctly  cynical,  if  not  un- 
amiable;  but  their  surface  truth  was  of 
universal  appeal,  and  their  humor  was 
fetching.  Indeed,  the  public  palate  always 
most  keenly  relished  Robertson's  mild 
bitterness  when  it  was  bitterest.  Some  of 
my  readers  will  recall  an  exemplary  epi- 
sode in  Ours.  The  scene  is  an  English 
private  park.  A  heavy  shower  of  rain  has 
come  on,  and  two  pairs  have  sought  shel- 
ter under  the  trees.  On  the  right  are  a 
youthful  couple,  in  the  early  stages  of  a 
love  affair.    The  jeime  premier  has  taken 

[    43    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 

off  his  coat,  and  insists  upon  wrapping  it 
around  the  slender  figure  of  the  girl  against 
her  pleased  but  earnest  objections.  On 
the  left  are  a  middle-aged  married  pair. 
The  wife  presently  says,  in  a  peevish  tone, 
"Alexander,  if  you  walked  to  the  hall, 
you  could  send  me  an  umbrella;  "  to  which 
the  husband  promptly  replies,  "  I  'd  rather 
you  'd  get  wet." 

The  deeper  reasons  of  the  law  of  the 
survival  of  dramas  may  not  be  laid  down 
here  and  now,  but  a  good  negative  work- 
ing-day rule  of  prediction  can  be  furnished. 
It  seems  to  be  a  part  of  the  present  order 
of  things,  at  least  in  English-speaking  coun- 
tries, that  our  dramas  shall  be  ephemeral. 
Even  the  best  of  them  are  like  insects, 
made  to  flaunt  their  little  wings  for  a  few 
hours  in  the  sunshine  of  popular  favor. 
The  caprice  of  fashion  deals  out  death 
with  relentless  speed  to  these  plays.  That 
they  furnish  the  public  with  much  enter- 
tainment is  not  to  be  questioned ;  but  they 

[    44    ] 


THE   EPHEMERAL   DRAMA 

have  no  essential  beauty,  or  imposing 
breadth,  or  prevailing  power  to  make  their 
appeal  potent  beyond  a  year  or  less  of  life. 
"  The  best  in  this  kind  are  but  shadows," 
said  the  Dramatist  of  the  World,  in  one 
of  his  remarkable  expressions  of  doubt 
about  the  art  of  which  he  was  Prime  Min- 
ister and  Master.  The  rule  of  negative 
prediction  is  simple  enough :  The  play 
which  never  passes  into  literature;  the 
play  which,  in  "the  cold  permanency  of 
print,"  cannot  endure  reading  and  reread- 
ing, has  the  sure  seed  of  death  within  it. 
Out  of  a  hundred  contemporary  dramas, 
ninety  are  flat  and  unprofitable  on  a  first 
perusal,  and  ninety-and-nine  are  warranted 
to  cause  mental  nausea  at  a  second.  Take 
Robertson's  School,  for  instance,  which 
was  performed  to  delighted  hundreds  of 
thousands,  in  England  and  America,  in  the 
early  seventies.  Reading  it  deliberately 
to-day  is  like  absorbing  a  gallon  of  weak, 
warmish  eau  sucree  flavored  with  the  juice 

[    45    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


of  half  a  lemon  and  a  small  pinch  of  gin- 
ger. Contrast  with  that  work,  and  with 
works  of  its  quality,  the  half  a  hundred 
tragedies  and  comedies  which  remain  to 
us  from  the  Greeks  of  the  fifth  and  fourth 
centuries  before  Christ.  The  newest  of 
these  plays  are  two  thousand  two  hundred 
years  old :  they  are  written  in  a  dead  lan- 
guage; they  have  the  atmosphere  of  a  re- 
mote land  and  an  alien  age  and  civilization; 
yet  they  still  receive  the  quick  sympathy 
and  command  the  reverent  admiration  of 
the  world.  The  corollary  of  the  rule  for 
negative  prediction  is  obvious:  The  na- 
tion which  is  producing  no  readable  dra- 
matic literature  is  producing  no  dramas  of 
permanent  importance  from  the  points  of 
view  of  art  and  life,  which  are  indeed  one 
point  and  the  same. 


[   46   ] 


VII 

The  Great  Dramatic  QyiNQiJENNiUM 
AND  THE  Boston  Museum 

THE  first  few  years  of  my  experience 
were  memorable  for  their  wealth 
of  interest,  for  the  splendor  and 
variety  of  their  histrionic  material,  for  the 
significant  changes  of  the  lines  upon  which 
the  American  theatre  was  to  develop. 
Within  the  half  decade  between  1870  and 
1875,  Charles  Fechter,  Carlotta  Leclercq, 
and  Tommaso  Salvini  first  appeared  in  this 
country  ;  Charles  James  Mathews,  in  ad- 
mirable form,  revisited  our  stage  after  a 
long  absence  ;  Charlotte  Cushman,  having 
reestablished  her  primacy  over  all  our  na- 
tive actresses,  was  playing  her  most  cel- 
ebrated parts  ;  Nilsson  and  Lucca  and 
Parepa-Rosa  were  first  seen  and  heard  here 

[    47    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


in  opera ;  Edwin  Booth  was  approaching 
the  zenith  of  his  fame  and  power  ;  Jeffer- 
son's Rip  Van  Winkle  was  causing  itself  to 
be  accepted  as  the  highest  achievement  of 
American  comedy  ;  Sothern's  unique  art, 
especially  in  Lord  Dundreary,  its  most 
original  expression,  had  prevailed  over  the 
two  great  English-speaking  nations,  but 
was  still  as  fresh  as  the  dew  of  morning  ; 
Madame  Janauschek's  superior  ability  was 
beginning  to  be  appreciated  ;  Adelaide 
Neilson,  the  incomparable,  entered  upon 
her  American  career ;  W.  S.  Gilbert's 
peculiar  gifts  as  a  dramatist  were  in  pro- 
cess of  acceptance  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic  ;  and  our  country,  through  Mr. 
Bronson  Howard  and  his  Saratoga,  was 
making  a  new  essay  of  originality  in  the 
creation  of  a  play  of  contemporaneous 
"  society."  This  was  the  period,  also,  of  a 
great  revival  of  dramatic  versions  of  Dick- 
ens's novels,  in  the  best  of  which,  Little 
Em'ly,  there  was  much  good  acting  in  Bos- 

[    48    ] 


DRAMATIC   Q_UINQ.UENNIUM 

ton  :  first  at  Selwyn's  Theatre,  by  Mr. 
Robinson  as  Peggotty,  Mr.  Le  Moyne  as 
Uriah  Heep,  Mr.  Pearson  as  Ham  Peg- 
gotty, Mrs.  Barry  as  Rosa  Dartle,  and 
Miss  Mary  Cary  as  Emily  ;  and  later,  at 
another  house,  when  John  T.  Raymond 
gave  his  delicious  interpretation  of  Mi- 
cawber.  Also,  it  may  be  stated  in  paren- 
thesis, midway  of  these  years,  to  wit  in 
1872,  occurred  in  Boston  the  Peace  Jubi- 
lee, with  its  huge  chorus  and  orchestra, 
its  foreign  bands  of  instrumentalists,  and 
its  presentation  of  Madame  Peschka-Leut- 
ner  ;  the  necessary  machinery  having  been 
set  in  motion  by  Patrick  Sarsfield  Gilmore, 
most  persistent  and  tireless  of  conductors 
and  entrepreneurs. 

It  was  at  "about  this  time"  —  the  fa- 
miliar quotation  from  the  Old  Farmer's 
Almanac  is  apropos — that  that  breaking 
up  of  stock  companies,  which  had  previ- 
ously begun,  took  on  a  precipitate  speed. 
There  were  still,  however,  a  dozen  or  so 

[    49    ] 


A   DRAMATIC    CRITIC 

regularly  established  troupes  in  the  whole 
land,  and  of  these  this  city  had  three  of 
the  best,  placed  at  the  Boston  Theatre,  the 
Globe,  and  the  Boston  Museum.  The  last 
of  these  houses  was  in  a  distinctive  and 
peculiar  sense  the  theatre  of  the  capital  of 
Massachusetts  :  partly  because  of  its  age 
and  unbroken  record  as  a  place  of  amuse- 
ment ;  even  more  because  of  the  steady 
merit  of  its  performances  and  the  celebrity 
of  many  of  its  performers.  At  the  outset, 
as  every  Bostonian  knows,  this  establish- 
ment was  conducted  on  the  plan  of  Bar- 
num's  of  New  York.  The  word  "  theatre  " 
was  not  visible  on  any  of  its  bills,  pro- 
grammes, or  advertisements.  It  was  a  mu- 
seum, and  justified  its  title  by  an  edifying 
exhibit  of  stuffed  animals,  bones,  mum- 
mies, minerals,  wax  figures,  and  other  cu- 
rios ;  making,  through  these  "  branches  of 
learning  "  and  its  long-continued  obeisance 
to  Puritan  tradition  —  after  that  tradition 
had  ceased  from  the  Municipal  Ordinances 

[    50    ] 


DRAMATIC   CtUINQ^UENNIUM 

—  by  closing  its  doors  on  Saturday  nights, 
an  eloquent  appeal  to  the  patronage  of  so- 
ber persons,  affected  with  scruples  against 
the  godless  theatre.  The  appeal  was  as 
successful  as  it  was  shrewd.  To  this  day, 
I  doubt  not,  there  are  citizens  of  Boston 
who  patronize  no  other  place  of  theatrical 
amusement  than  its  Museum,  though  the 
stuffed  beasts  and  the  observance  of  the  eve 
of  the  Lord's  Day  are  things  of  the  past. 

But,  howsoever  disguised  or  preferred 
by  the  children  of  the  Puritans,  the  Mu- 
seum was  a  theatre,  if  ever  there  was  one. 
Those  who  can  recall  its  earliest  days  will 
find  clinging  to  their  memories  swarms  of 
names,  generally  well  mixed  up  as  to  dates 
and  sequences  :  Mr.  Tom  Comer,  leader  of 
the  orchestra,  accomplished  musician  and 
genial  gentleman  ;  W.  H.  Smith,  an  old- 
time  actor  and  manager  of  stately  st^'le  ; 
Mrs.  Thoman,  a  charming  performer  of 
light  comedy  ;  Mr.  Finn,  droll  son  of  a 
much    droller   father  ;    the   graceful    and 

[    51    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


vivid  Mr.  Keach  ;  Mr.  J.  Davies,  who  was 
a  very  "  heavy  "  villain  on  the  stage,  but, 
off  it,  lightly  wielded  the  barber's  razor  ; 
the  blazing  Mrs.  Barrett,  whose  life  went 
out  in  darkness  ;  J.  A.  Smith,  who  did 
stage  fops,  always  with  the  same  affected 
drawl  and  rising  inflection,  and,  an  actor 
at  night,  was  a  tailor  by  day,  except  on 
Wednesday  and  Saturday  afternoons,  when 
he  was  an  actor  ;  Miss  Kate  Reignolds,  a 
very  brilliant  player,  who,  as  Mrs.  Erving 
Winslow,  now  enjoys  the  highest  reputa- 
tion as  a  reader ;  the  dryly  effective  Mr. 
Hardenbergh  ;  Mr.  Charles  Barron,  a  care- 
ful and  versatile  leading  man  ;  Miss  Annie 
Clarke,  who  made  herself  an  accomplished 
actress,  despite  the  handicaps  of  a  harsh 
voice  and  native  stiffness  of  bearing  ;  Mrs. 
Vincent,  the  perennial,  the  great-hearted, 
who  for  years  was  never  mentioned  except 
in  close  connection  with  the  adjectives 
"dear"  and  "old;"  and,  finally,  Wil- 
liam Warren,  the  comedian. 


[    52    ] 


VIII 
William  Warren,   Comedian 

BOSTON  was  fortunate,  indeed,  to 
be  the  home  and  workshop  of  Wil- 
liam Warren  for  the  better  part  of 
half  a  century.  His  career  as  an  actor  cov- 
ered exactly  fifty  years,  extending  from 
1832  to  1882  ;  and  during  the  entire  period 
between  1847  and  1882,  except  for  a  sin- 
gle break  of  one  year,  he  was  the  central 
sun  of  the  stock  company  of  the  Boston 
Museum.  Of  the  modern  mode  of  histri- 
onic vagabondage  he  had  no  experience, 
—  no  experience,  of  course,  of  the  mer- 
cenary "  star "  system,  which  binds  the 
artist  to  very  numerous  repetitions  of  a 
very  few  plays.  When  his  seventieth  birth- 
day was  celebrated,  a  little  while  before 
the  close  of  his  professional  career,  the  tale 

[    53    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


of  his  work  was  told  :  he  had  given  13,345 
performances,  and  had  appeared  in  577 
characters  !  What  a  record  is  this,  and 
how  amazingly  it  contrasts  with  the  expe- 
rience of  other  noted  modern  players  !  It 
may  be  safely  presumed,  I  think,  that  no 
other  American  actor,  even  in  the  early  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  ever  matched 
Mr.  Warren's  figures.  But  compare  them 
with  those  of  his  eminent  kinsman,  Joseph 
Jefferson,  who  within  the  latter  half  of  his 
life  as  an  actor,  say  from  1875  to  1900, 
has  probably  impersonated  not  more  than 
a  dozen  parts  in  all  ;  limiting  himself,  at 
ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  of  his 
performances,  to  exactly  four  characters. 

Something  is  gained,  something  is  lost, 
of  course,  by  the  pursuit  of  either  of  the 
professional  courses  which  have  been  in- 
dicated. But  as  I  look  back  upon  Mr. 
Warren  and  his  playing,  the  lives  of  all 
his  rivals  seem  narrow,  monotonous,  and 
unfruitful.    His  art  touched  life,  as  life  is 

[    54   ] 


WILLIAM  WARREN 


presented  in  the  drama,  at  ten  thousand 
points.  His  plays  were  in  every  mode  and 
mood  of  the  Comic  Muse,  and  ranged  in 
quality  from  the  best  of  Shakespeare  to 
the  worst  of  Dr.  Jones.  In  old-fashioned 
farces,  with  their  strong,  sometimes  vul- 
gar, often  noisy,  usually  vital  fun  ;  in  taw- 
dry patriotic  or  emotional  melodramas  ;  in 
standard  old  English  comedies  ;  in  cheap 
local  pieces,  narrow  and  petty  in  their 
appeal  ;  in  delicate  French  comediettas, 
whose  colors  are  laid  on  with  a  brush  like 
Meissonier's  ;  in  English  versions  of  the 
best  Parisian  dramas,  subtle,  sophisticated, 
exigent  oi  finesse  and  adresse  in  the  player, 
—  in  each  and  all  of  these  Mr.  Warren 
was  easily  chief  among  many  good  actors  ; 
to  the  demands  of  each  and  all  he  was 
amply  adequate.  The  one  fault  of  his  style 
was  a  slight  excess  in  the  use  of  stentorian 
tones,  —  the  result,  I  suspect,  of  his  early 
immersion  in  farce,  —  and  his  gift  of  pa- 
thetic suggestion,  though  generally  sure, 

[    55    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


did  not  always  have  the  deepest  penetra- 
tive power.  Otherwise,  it  may  be  said, 
with  sober  scruple  for  the  exact  truth, 
that  Mr.  Warren  was  nearly  faultless. 
His  acting  seemed  the  fine  flower  of  care- 
ful culture,  as  well  as  the  free  outcome  of 
large  intelligence  and  native  genius.  His 
enunciation  and  pronunciation  of  English 
were  beyond  criticism.  His  Latin  was 
perfect,  even  in  its  quantities.  His  French 
was  exquisite  in  intonation,  and  its  accent 
was  agreeable  to  Parisian  ears.  In  all 
details  of  costume  and  "  make-up "  he 
showed  the  nicest  taste  and  judgment, 
and  the  results  of  scholarly  pains.  So  Mr. 
Warren  was  a  School  and  Conservatory 
of  acting  in  himself.  In  him  Boston  had 
a  Theatre  Fran9ais,  situated  on  Tremont 
Street,  as  long  as  he  lived  and  played; 
and  Boston  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  itself 
that  it  did  not  derive  more  profit  from  the 
inspection  and  enjoyment  of  his  masterly 
art  than  the  present  time  gives  any  proof  of. 

[    56    ] 


WILLIAM  WARREN 


Apropos  of  the  large  attribution  of  the 
last  two  sentences,  I  wish  to  submit  here  a 
piece  of  Gallic  testimony  that  I  cited  in  the 
essay  on  Mr.  Warren  which  was  printed 
in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  a  few  years  ago. 
With  Rachel,  on  her  visit  to  America  in 
1855-56,  came  M.  Leon  Beauvallet,  as 
one  of  Xh<t  jeunes  -premiers  of  her  troupe, 
and  historiographer  of  the  expedition.  On 
his  return  to  Paris  he  published  a  thick 
duodecimo,  entitled  Rachel  and  the  New 
World,  which  is  one  of  the  liveliest  books 
ever  written  by  a  lively  Frenchman.  His 
strictures  upon  American  life  and  man- 
ners were  a  queer  mixture  of  flippancy, 
ignorance,  and  shrewdness.  But  of  acting 
he  was  a  keen  and  lucid  critic,  educated 
in  the  best  Gallic  school,  familiar  with 
all  the  best  work  of  the  Parisian  stage. 
On  the  first  Saturday  afternoon  of  the 
company's  first  season  in  Boston,  Rachel 
played  Adrienne  Lecouvreur  at  the  Bos- 
ton  Theatre;   and   M.  Beauvallet,  being 

[   57   ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


"  out  of  the  bill,"  repaired,  with  much 
curiosity,  to  the  Museum  to  see  Adri- 
enne  the  Actress,  cast  with  Miss  Eliza 
Logan  as  the  heroine,  and  Mr.  Keach  as 
Maurice  de  Saxe,  He  found  the  perform- 
ance, as  a  whole,  anything  but  to  his  taste, 
and  expressed  his  displeasure  with  un- 
sparing frankness.  But  of  Mr.  Warren 
he  said :  "  Mr.  W.  Warren,  who  played 
the  role  of  Michonnet,  has  seemed  to  me 
exceedingly  remarkable.  [Italics  in  the 
original.]  He  acted  the  part  of  the  old 
stage  manager  with  versatile  talent,  and  I 
have  applauded  him  with  the  whole 
house."  And  after  a  sweeping  expression 
of  disgust  concerning  the  various  anachro- 
nisms in  dress,  he  was  careful  to  add,  "  I 
do  not  allude  to  Mr.  Warren,  who  was 
irreproachably  costumed." 

My  contemporaries  will  heartily  com- 
mend my  insistence  upon  the  greatness  of 
this  artist  and  the  greatness  of  his  product, 
and  the  readers  of  the  younger  generation 

[    58    ] 


WILLIAM   WARREN 


must  submit  to  a  recital  which  is,  after  all, 
nothing  but  a  bit  of  the  history  of  the 
American  stage,  with  a  margin  of  just 
attribution  to  a  rare  actor.  Think  for  a 
moment  upon  the  marvel  of  it  all, —  so 
trebly  wonderful  in  this  day  of  the  sparse- 
producing  player,  —  remembering  that 
Mr.  Warren's  record  stands  equally  for  the 
highest  skill  and  the  richest  productiv- 
ity. Imagine  the  mental  speed  and  acu- 
men, the  temperamental  sensibility,  the 
extraordinary  power  of  memory  both  in 
acquisition  and  in  grip,  the  complete  mas- 
tery of  all  the  symbols  and  tools  of  the 
profession,  the  huge  mimetic  and  plastic 
gift,  the  vis  comica,  all  of  which  are  in- 
volved in  the  almost  perfection  with  which 
the  total  feat  was  accomplished.  Here  was 
an  unrivaled  exemplar,  also,  of  the  docility 
and  facility  which  were  once  supposed  to 
be  essential  to  the  equipment  of  a  great 
comedian.  It  was  a  part  of  the  scheme, 
a  condition  which  he  accepted  as  insepa- 

[    59   1 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


rable  from  the  work  of  his  vocation,  that, 
within  recognized  limits,  he  should  be 
like  a  French  falconer,  whose  agents  were 
trained  to  fly  at  any  kind  of  game,  from 
the  noblest  to  the  very  mean.  It  is  not 
to  be  doubted  that  Mr.  Warren's  refined 
taste  was  frequently  and  for  long  periods 
of  time  offended  by  the  stuff  of  his 
text.  But  no  contempt  which  he  felt  ever 
tainted  his  work;  he  was  always  faithful 
in  every  particular  to  play,  playwright,  and 
public,  making  the  best  of  every  charac- 
ter by  doing  his  best  in  and  for  it.  He 
would  work  —  the  reader  must  permit  the 
use  of  many  metaphors  —  with  a  palette 
knife  in  distemper,  if  he  could  not  get  a 
brush  and  oil  paints;  in  clay  and  granite, 
when  marble  was  not  to  be  had;  with  a 
graver's  finest  tool  upon  an  emerald,  or  a 
shipwright's  broad  axe  upon  a  timber; 
now  play  merrily  upon  the  tambourine  or 
bones,  and  anon  draw  soul-stirring  music 
from  "  the  gradual  violin "  or  the  many- 

[    60    ] 


WILLIAM   WARREN 


voiced  organ.  There  seemed  to  be  abso- 
lutely no  limit  to  his  sympathy,  practically 
none  to  his  adaptability  as  an  actor.  Pilli- 
coddy  and  Touchstone,  Jacques  Fauvel 
and  Polonius,  John  Duck  and  M.  Tour- 
billon,  Mr.  Ledger  and  Michonnet,  Tem- 
pleton  Jitt  and  Jesse  Rural,  Sir  Harcourt 
Courtly  and  Tony  Lumpkin,  Triplet  and 
Dogberry,  Goldfinch  and -Sir  Peter  Teazle, 
—  that  is  the  list  of  Mr.  Warren's  contrast- 
ing impersonations  which  I  took  for  one  of 
my  texts  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  a  dozen 
years  ago.  Fifty  other  pairs  would  have 
served  about  equally  well,  and  the  thought 
of  any  half  a  dozen  of  the  coupled  imper- 
sonations will  avail  to  move  my  memory 
to  glorious  laughter,  or  to  thrill  it  with  the 
delicious  pain  of  acute  sympathy,  or  to 
enchant  it  with  the  recognition  of  consum- 
mate beauty.  It  is  impossible  to  estimate 
how  much  such  an  actor  has  added  to  the 
pure  pleasure  of  the  community,  or  how 
potent  a  factor  he  was  as  an  educator  of 

[    6i    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


the  general  heart  and  mind.  To  a  pupil  of 
the  highest  sensibility,  Mr.  Warren's  deep- 
hearted  Sir  Peter  Teazle,  in  whom  Sheri- 
dan's conception  was  at  once  justified,  re- 
produced and  developed,  might  of  itself 
have  gone  far  to  furnish  a  liberal  edu- 
cation. Surely,  no  decently  appreciative 
spectator  who  sat  at  the  artist's  feet  for 
a  score  of  years  could  have  failed  to  learn 
something  of  the  difference  between  sin- 
cerity and  affectation,  breadth  and  narrow- 
ness, ripeness  and  crudity,  in  the  practice 
of  the  histrionic  art. 

The  temptation  presents  itself,  and  may 
properly  be  yielded  to,  to  compare  Mr. 
Warren  and  the  other  most  distinguished 
American  comedian,  Mr.  Warren's  rela- 
tive and  close  friend,  Mr.  Joseph  Jeffer- 
son. To  speak  the  truth  will  nothing 
wrong  either  of  these  illustrious  players. 
It  is  to  be  conceded  at  once  by  a  parti- 
san of  our  local  comedian  that  no  single 
achievement  of  his  career  approached,  in 

[    62    ] 


WILLIAM   WARREN 


depth  and  suggestiveness,  in  significance 
as  an  interpreter  of  the  deeper  things  of 
the  spirit,  in  resulting  potency  over  the 
general  heart  of  man,  that  Rip  Van  Win- 
kle which,  in  the  teeth  of  a  thin  text  and 
fantastic  plot,  Mr.  Jefferson  has  caused  to 
be  accepted  as  the  supreme  achievement 
in  comedy  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  touch  of  genius  is 
here  to  be  seen  and  to  be  reverenced.  It 
follows,  also,  as  a  sure  consequence,  that 
Mr.  Jefferson  will  be  remembered  longer 
than  Mr.  Warren.  The  power  of  an  artist 
to  attain  or  approach  immortality  in  any  ,,..._  -. 
art  is  the  power  of  his  one  most  effec-  z^;''  //.^ 
tual  work.  To  reach  this  end,  a  large 
number  of  very  good  things  are  as  nothing 
beside  one  superlatively  excellent  thing. 
Who  doubts  that  Joseph  Blanco  White's 
sole  achievement,  his  matchless  sonnet. 
Night  and  Death,  will  linger  on  the  lips 
and  in  the  hearts  of  men,  when  the  whole 
mass  of  Spenser's  beautiful  poems  in  the 

[    63    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


same  kind  exist,  if  they  exist  at  all,  as 
studies  in  prosody?  But  these  large  con- 
cessions do  not  concede  everything.  Our 
Mr.  Warren,  by  his  vastly  superior  wealth, 
variety,  and  scope,  has  earned  the  higher 
title  to  the  sacred  name  of  artist,  of  what 
treason  soever  to  his  fame  the  ungrateful 
memories  of  men  shall  prove  to  be  capa- 
ble. Personally,  I  make  little  account  of 
that  cheerful,  chirping  libel  upon  Dickens's 
creation  which  Mr.  Jefferson  has  labeled 
Caleb  Plummer,  and  no  very  great  ac- 
count of  that  effervescent  -petit  maitre^ 
light  of  step  and  glib  of  tongue,  into 
whom  he  has  transformed  Sheridan's  clod- 
born  Bob  Acres,  though  I  admit  the  ac- 
tor's delicate  drollery  in  both  impersona- 
tions. Mr.  Jefferson  can  point,  it  seems 
to  me,  to  but  one  work  of  supreme  dis- 
tinction, the  sole  and  single  product  of  his 
life,  the  masterpiece  of  our  stage, — the 
figure  of  the  immortal  Rip.  Our  Warren, 
like  another  Rubens,  could  conduct  you 

[    64    1 


WILLIAM   WARREN 


through  a  vast  gallery,  crowded  with  no- 
ble canvases,  of  which  at  least  a  hundred 
glow  with  the  beauty  and  the  truth  of  life, 
every  one  bearing  his  firm  signature. 

For  many  years  Mr.  Warren  was  a 
most  interesting  figure  in  Boston,  not  only 
upon  the  stage,  but  upon  the  streets  over 
which  he  took  his  deliberate  and  slightly 
varied  walks.  His  tall,  large,  well-formed 
figure,  and  his  easy,  rather  peculiar  gait, 
which  seemed  always  about  to  become, 
but  never  quite  became,  a  roll  or  swagger; 
his  noble  head,  with  the  bright  penetrat- 
ing eyes  and  the  extraordinarily  sensitive 
mouth,  made  equally  to  utter  mirth  or 
pathos  or  wisdom,  produced  the  effect  of 
a  unique  personality.  His  manners  were 
the  finest  I  ever  saw  in  a  man.  With 
actors  almost  all  things  seem  to  be  in 
extremes,  to  be  of  the  best  or  the  worst. 
The  bad  manners  of  "  the  profession  "  are 
the  most  intolerable  manners  in  the  world. 
On  the  other  hand,  an  experienced  Eng- 

[   65    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 

lish  grande  dame  spoke  once  with  know- 
ledge when,  observing  at  a  public  assem- 
bly the  rare  charm  of  bearing  of  a  beau- 
tiful lady  whose  face  was  strange  to  her, 
she  said,  "  That  person  is  either  a  member 
of  the  royal  family  or  an  actress."  Mr. 
Warren's  whole  "  style  "  —  if  the  vulgar 
word  may  be  permitted  —  seemed  to  me 
faultless.  His  grace,  ease,  refinement,  per- 
fect modesty,  absolute  freedom  from  affec- 
tation, coupled  with  his  swift  responsive- 
ness in  facial  expression  and  in  speech, 
made  conversation  with  him  a  delight  and 
a  privilege.  And  to  the  traits  which  have 
been  mentioned  is  to  be  added  a  peculiar 
simplicity,  which  appeared  to  be  the  quint- 
essence of  the  infinite  variety  of  his  life. 
I  remember  hearing  it  said,  at  a  time  near 
the  close  of  the  Great  War,  by  some  men 
who  were  native  here,  and  to  the  best 
Boston  manner  born,  that  Edward  Ever- 
ett, A.  B.,  A.  M.,  LL.  D.,  ex-Gov- 
ernor of  Massachusetts,  ex-United  States 

r    66    ] 


WILLIAM   WARREN 


Senator  from  Massachusetts,  ex-President 
of  Harvard  College,  ex-Minister  to  Eng- 
land, litterateur,  orator,  statesman,  was, 
in  respect  of  distinction  of  manners,  in  a 
class  with  but  one  other  of  his  fellow  citi- 
zens: that  other  one  appeared  in  the  lo- 
cal directory  as  "  Warren,  William,  come- 
dian, boards  2  Bulfinch  Place."  It  is  to 
be  added  that  Mr.  Warren  was  the  most 
reserved  and  reticent  of  mortals  about 
everything  pertaining  to  himself,  and  that 
he  was  extremely,  perhaps  unduly,  sensi- 
tive to  adverse  criticism.  When  he  bled, 
he  bled  inwardly,  and  of  the  wound  he 
permitted  no  sign  to  escape  him.  He  was 
a  first  favorite  with  all  the  actors  and  ac- 
tresses of  his  acquaintance,  and  was  most 
gentle,  helpful,  and  tolerant  to  players 
who  came  to  him  for  advice  or  comment. 


[   67  ] 


IX 

Actual  and  Ideal  Training  for  the 
Stage 

THE  career  of  William  Warren  as  a 
histrionic  artist  is  of  special  inter- 
est for  the  light  which  it  throws 
upon  the  vexed  question  of  education  for 
the  stage.  His  exceptional  record  implies, 
of  course,  in  the  man,  those  exceptional 
native  gifts  which  have  been  considered. 
But  it  is  equally  plain  that  his  powers 
had  been  highly  developed  by  training 
and  practice,  and  that  his  art  had  been 
enriched  and  refined  by  intelligent  and 
industrious  culture.  It  is  true  that  he  had 
the  right  ancestral  bent,  and  was  born  to 
the  passion  of  the  stage,  and  that  the  force 
of  the  inherited  instinct  and  aptitude  of 
the  actor  seems  to  be  more  potent  than 

[    6S    ] 


TRAINING   FOR   THE   STAGE 

any  other  that  is  transmitted  through  the 
blood.  Mr.  Warren  was  the  son  of  an 
English  player  and  of  an  American  lady 
of  an  acting  family,  and  counted  among  his 
near  relatives  a  father,  an  aunt,  four  sis- 
ters, and  many  nieces,  nephews,  and  cou- 
sins, who  attained  good  positions  upon  the 
stage;  Joseph  Jefferson  being  one  of  the 
cousins  in  the  second  degree.  His  pro- 
fessional training,  from  sources  exterior  to 
himself,  was  obtained  wholly  within  the 
only  "  Conservatory  "  of  his  youthful  pe- 
riod, to  wit,  the  regular  old-fashioned  stock 
company.  Here  he  was  brought  into  con- 
tact with  the  best  acting  of  his  day;  here 
he  had  the  opportunity  to  study  at  close 
quarters  the  speech,  gesture,  bearing,  and 
general  method  of  the  dramatic  leaders,  in 
a  vast  variety  of  characters,  changing  from 
night  to  night;  and  here,  as  a  beginner,  he 
was  subjected  to  the  caustic  criticism  of 
the  stage  manager.  From  an  occasional 
specialist  he  might  take  lessons  in  fencing 

[    69   ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


and  dancing,  practicing  with  his  compan- 
ions what  he  learned  from  his  masters; 
through  observing  other  actors,  and  with 
the  help  of  some  of  the  humble  servants 
of  the  stage,  he  would  begin  to  acquire  the 
arts  of  "  making  up."  That  is  literally  all 
the  schooling  that  Mr.  Warren  had.  His 
assiduous  industry  did  the  rest.  But  ex- 
perience shows  that  this  schooling,  limited 
and  imperfect  as  it  was  in  some  respects, 
was  adequate  to  make  of  good  material  a 
highly  finished  product.  I  doubt  if  Mr. 
Warren  ever  took  a  lesson  in  what  is 
known  as  elocution;  yet,  by  practice  and 
imitation  of  good  speakers,  he  made  him- 
self master  of  an  exquisite  enunciation  of 
English,  which  was  a  source  of  pure  plea- 
sure to  sensitive  ears. 

The  resident  stock  company  as  a  school 
of  histrionic  instruction  must  be  said  to 
have  passed  away.  Actors  in  traveling 
troupes  learn  from  one  another  by  snatches, 
of  course;  private  teachers — often  retired 

[    70    ] 


TRAINING   FOR   THE   STAGE 

actors,  and  sometimes  of  considerable  skill 
—  are  fairly  numerous  in  New  York,  Phil- 
adelphia, and  Boston;  separated  by  long 
intervals,  in  two  or  three  of  our  largest 
cities,  are  Conservatories  or  Schools  of 
Expression,  of  which  some  in  terms  pro- 
fess to  train  for  the  stage.  To  the  person 
who  wishes  to  become  an  actor  only  the 
last  two  means  of  instruction  are  accessi- 
ble, until  he  has  got  a  foothold  in  some 
company.  I  shall  have  something  to  say 
by  and  by  concerning  our  great  national 
aptitude  for  the  stage;  but  it  is  plain  to 
any  clear  eyesight  that  the  condition  of 
chaos  in  respect  of  instruction,  and  the 
want  of  fixed  standards  at  almost  every 
point,  are  interfering  seriously  with  our 
progress  in  the  art  of  acting,  and  make  the 
attainment  of  distinction  in  that  art  in  the 
largest  way,  for  the  American  stage,  prac- 
tically impossible.  It  is  unfortunate  that 
the  actors  themselves  are  barren  of  helpful 
suggestions.   As  a  class  they  have  little  ca- 

C    7M 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


pacity  for  generalization,  and  scarcely  one 
of  them  appears  to  be  capable  of  transcend- 
ing the  limits  of  his  own  personal  experi- 
ence. Mr.  Richard  Mansfield,  lately,  in  a 
talk  intended  for  publication,  with  elabo- 
rately insincere  irony  disparaging  his  own 
"  poor "  acting,  scoffed  at  the  Conserva- 
tories, which  did  not  succeed  in  sending 
out  graduates  as  competent  even  as  him- 
self, who,  as  everybody  knows,  picked  up 
his  art  pretty  much  at  haphazard.  There 
was  truth  as  well  as  error  in  his  strictures, 
—  the  truth  being  more  important  than 
the  error.  Thus  far,  our  Schools  of  Acting, 
though  conducted  in  some  instances  by 
men  of  ability,  have  failed  in  training  can- 
didates for  the  stage.  One  fatal  criticism 
upon  the  graduates  of  these  schools  was 
made  from  the  first,  and  continues  to  be 
made:  their  fault  in  action  and  in  utter- 
ance is  declared  to  be  a  stiffness  of  style, 
which  is  generally  hopeless.  The  explana- 
tion is  obvious:  the  students  of  acting:  are 


C  72  ] 


TRAINING   FOR   THE    STAGE 

not  brought  into  touch  at  the  right  times, 
and  kept  in  touch  for  a  sufficiently  long 
time,  with  the  stage  itself.  The  French 
have  solved  the  problem.  The  Gallic  actor 
of  high  ambition  acquires  the  machinery 
or  skeleton  of  his  art  in  the  Conservatory, 
and,  contemporaneously,  in  the  theatre, 
learns  to  rid  himself  of  the  mechanical 
stiffness  which  is  almost  sure  to  follow 
technical  drill  in  enunciation,  pose,  and 
gesture.  If  he  did  not  get  the  lightening 
up  and  limbering  out  of  the  stage,  with 
resulting  freedom  of  movement  and  utter- 
ance, the  French  say,  his  playing  would 
suggest  the  operation  of  a  machine,  whose 
works  are  heard,  and  sometimes  even  seen. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  he  were  not  disci- 
plined in  the  Conservatory,  his  art,  in  many 
of  its  particulars,  would  be  wanting  in 
clarity  and  precision.  The  actor  of  the 
highest  grade  must  receive,  therefore,  the 
twofold  training,  —  the  scholastic  and  the 
theatrical.    They  order  all  these  things  in 

[    73    ] 


A   DRAMATIC    CRITIC 

France  much  better  than  we  in  America, 
and  their  success  has  demonstrated  the 
justness  of  their  method.  Our  actors  have 
the  root  of  the  matter  in  them,  —  are  sen- 
sitive, facile,  intelligent,  and  richly  en- 
dowed with  the  mimetic  gift;  but  they 
lack  the  highest  finish  and  certainty  of 
touch,  and  the  moment  they  pass  outside 
the  rapid  give-and-take  and  short  speeches 
of  the  modern  comic  or  romantic  drama 
they  fail  at  many  important  points,  espe- 
cially in  gesture,  in  clean  enunciation,  and 
in  the  ability  to  declaim  passages  of  mod- 
erate length,  wherein  a  nice  adjustment 
and  proportion  of  emphasis  are  essential. 
A  hundred  instances  might  be  cited.  It 
will  suffice  to  mention  two:  Miss  Maude 
Adams,  whose  impersonation  of  the  Due 
de  Reichstadt  in  L'Aiglon  —  an  imper- 
sonation of  much  beauty  and  pathos  — 
is  marred  by  the  artist's  powerlessness  to 
enunciate  intelligibly  when  extreme  pas- 
sion  and  speed  are  demanded  by  a  "ti- 

C    74    ] 


TRAINING  FOR  THE   STAGE 

rade;"  Mr.  Mansfield,  who,  in  the  long 
speeches  of  Henry  V.,  frequently  so  mis- 
places and  misproportions  his  emphasis 
that  the  finer  shades  or  larger  powers  of 
the  Shakespearean  text  are  lost.  If  our 
stage  were  to  be  wholly  given  up  to  trivial 
and  unimportant  plays,  such  a  want  of  the 
best  technical  training  might  not  much 
matter,  though  still  it  would  matter.  But 
the  demand  for  the  best  dramas  has  not 
wholly  disappeared,  and  there  is  no  know- 
ing what  the  future  may  bring  forth. 
Whenever  Shakespeare  or  Goldsmith  or 
Sheridan  is  "  revived,"  and  when  a  Ros- 
tand is  born  to  us,  we  shall  need  a  corps 
of  actors  trained  with  the  finer  precision 
and  larger  style  of  the  Conservatory  which 
is  attached  to  a  great  theatre. 


C    75    ] 


X 

J.     L.    Toole    and    Charles   James 
Mathews 

RECALLING  the  work  of  our  great 
comedian  reminds  me  of  his  con- 
temporary, Mr.  J.  L.  Toole,  the 
English  actor,  who  long  held  in  London 
the  primacy  which  was  Mr.  Warren's  in 
Boston  and  New  England.  Mr.  Toole 
visited  America  in  1874,  being  one  of 
many  British  players  whose  pinnaces 
sailed  to  our  golden  shores  in  the  years 
between  1870  and  1880.  These  visitors 
presented  strong  contrasts  in  professional 
ability,  —  the  ladies  being  alike,  however, 
in  possessing  great  personal  beauty.  The 
alien  artists,  weighed  in  just  scales,  showed 
a  preponderance  of  merit.  On  the  side  of 
mediocrity:  Mrs.  Scott-Siddons;  the  brisk 

[    76    ] 


TOOLE   AND   MATHEWS 

Mrs.  Rousby,  who  in  Tom  Taylor's  'Twixt 
Axe  and  Crown  presented  the  Princess 
Elizabeth  Tudor,  afterward  Qiicen  of  Eng- 
land, in  the  mode  of  an  amateur,  with 
occasional  flashes  of  brilliancy;  Miss  Cav- 
endish, a  large,  ponderous,  unimportant 
belle,  who  plodded  sturdily  over  the  dusty 
highway  of  commonplace;  and  Mrs.  Lang- 
try,  the  absurdest  of  actresses,  whose  pro- 
fessional stock  in  trade  consisted  of  her 
social  notoriety,  her  face,  her  figure,  and 
the  garments  and  jewels  wherewith  said 
figure  was  indued,  —  the  garments  being 
tagged  with  their  "  creators' "  names,  and 
bearing  price  marks  still  intentionally  le- 
gible. In  the  scale  of  merit  were  Miss 
Neilson,  Mr.  Mathews,  Mr.  Wyndham, 
Mr.  Irving,  and  Miss  Terry.  Mr.  Toole's 
name  ought,  I  suppose,  to  be  added  to  the 
list  of  honor.  But  his  tour  in  this  country 
was  far  from  fortunate,  and  he  made  no 
deep  impression  either  upon  the  critics  or 
the  public.    I  remember  his  acting,  and 

[    77    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


vaguely  recall  his  solid  comic  power,  his 
humanness,  and  his  variety,  with  some 
pleasure,  but  with  no  feeling  that  his  art 
was  great  or  distinguished.  The  plays 
which  he  produced  in  Boston  were,  with 
scarcely  an  exception,  flimsy  things,  whose 
vogue  had  depended  upon  his  success  in 
their  leading  parts.  I  fancy  that  he  was 
not  happy  in  his  American  environment, 
and  that  he  by  no  means  did  himself  jus- 
tice here.  The  testimony  of  my  own  mem- 
ory is  strong  only  upon  a  single  point,  and 
that  the  worst  point  in  his  entire  method. 
He  persisted  in  repeating  over  and  over 
again  queer  little  tricks  of  voice  or  action, 
which  were  funny  for  perhaps  once  hear- 
ing or  seeing,  but  would  not  bear  reitera- 
tion. His  British  audiences  encouraged 
him  in  this  habit  by  their  naif  acceptance 
of  it,  I  suspect;  his  American  audiences 
would  not  tolerate  it.  In  all  my  other  ex- 
perience of  the  theatre,  I  never  saw  a  com- 
pany of  spectators  freeze  with  such  steady 

[    78    ] 


TOOLE   AND   MATHEWS 

rapidity  against  an  actor  as  on  one  of  Mr. 
Toole's  nights  at  the  Globe  Theatre,  when 
in  Ici  On  Parle  Francais,  he  used  a  sense- 
less piece  of  stage  "  business,"  —  which 
caused  a  light  laugh  because  of  its  unex- 
pectedness, —  and  thrice  repeated  the  ab- 
surdity. On  the  fourth  recurrence  of  the 
offense,  it  was  not  only  not  rewarded  with 
a  single  snicker,  but  provoked  many  ex- 
pressions of  annoyance. 

In  marked  contrast  with  my  faint  recol- 
lections of  Toole  are  my  vivid  impressions 
of  Charles  James  Mathews.  Mr.  Mathews 
revisited  this  country  in  187 1,  when  he 
was  sixty-eight  years  of  age,  and  he 
seemed  to  me  then,  and  seems  to  me  now, 
an  unequaled  incarnation  of  the  spirit  of 
youth  and  jollity.  The  dazzling  Wynd- 
ham,  at  less  than  half  the  age  of  the  senior 
actor,  was  no  fresher  or  gayer  than  he, 
and  in  speed  of  tongue  and  wit  was  only 
a  good  second  to  Mr.  Mathews.  The 
elder  artist  was  not  to  be  compared  with 

[    79    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


Mr.  Warren  in  the  breadth  and  reach  of 
his  art,  though  he  did  some  great  things, 
of  which  I  recall  his  impersonation,  at  one 
and  the  same  performance,  of  Puff  and 
Sir  Fretful  Plagiary,  in  The  Critic  of 
Sheridan.  But  as  a  producer  of  mirth  of 
the  volatile,  effervescent  variety  I  have 
never  seen  his  equal.  Nothing  happier, 
wholesomer,  or  sweeter  in  this  light  kind 
can  be  imagined,  and  the  receptive  spec- 
tator of  the  comedian's  playing  often 
found  himself  affected  with  a  delicious 
cerebral  intoxication,  which  passed  away 
with  the  fall  of  the  curtain,  and  left  naught 
that  was  racking  behind.  The  laugh  cure 
is  the  only  mode  which  is  accepted  by 
the  physicians  of  every  school,  and  Mr. 
Mathews  must  have  been  a  potent  thera- 
peutic and  prophylactic  agent  in  the  health 
of  Great  Britain.  He  inherited  his  histri- 
onic talent,  and  had  been  finely  trained 
in  the  old  methods.  Even  in  France  his 
style  was  considered  admirable  in  grace, 

[    So    ] 


TOOLE   AND   MATHEWS 

finesse,  and  dexterity.  Sometimes  he 
played  in  French.  His  enunciation  was  a 
marvel  of  incisive  and  elegant  precision, 
effected  with  perfect  ease,  and  often  with 
extreme  velocity.  In  his  utterance  of  the 
lines  of  Captain  Patter,  in  his  father's 
comedietta.  Patter  vs.  Clatter,  he  per- 
formed an  amazing  feat.  There  were  in 
the  play  six  parts  besides  his  own,  the 
total  speeches  of  the  six  others  being 
uttered  in  three  hundred  words.  The 
drama  occupied  twenty  minutes  in  repre- 
sentation. Mr.  Mathews's  portion  of  the 
dialogue  was  practically  an  unbroken 
monologue  of  between  seven  thousand 
and  eight  thousand  words,  which  were  de- 
livered in  eleven  hundred  seconds.  His 
talk  went  as  a  whirlwind  moves,  or  as 
the  water  used  to  come  down  at  Lodore 
when  Southey's  encouraging  eye  was  on 
it;  but  no  ear  of  ordinary  acuteness 
needed  to  lose  a  syllable  of  his  text 

[    Si    ] 


XI 
Charlotte  Cushman 

NEAR  the  time  when  Mr.  Mathews 
made  his  last  visit  to  our  country 
Miss  Charlotte  Cushman  was  ap- 
proaching the  close  of  her  great  profes- 
sional career,  which  had  been  broken 
by  many  withdrawals  and  returns,  and 
marked  by  more  misuses  of  the  word 
"  final "  than  were  ever  in  the  history  of 
the  world  charged  against  any  other  artist. 
I  saw  her  in  her  assumptions  of  Meg 
Merrilies,  Lady  Macbeth,  and  Queen 
Katharine,  and  in  some  of  her  less  impor- 
tant characters.  I  thought  her  then,  and 
still  think  her,  the  only  actress  native  to 
'  our  soil  to  whom  the  adjective  "  great " 
can  be  fitly  applied.  As  I  remember  her, 
she  was  a  woman  of  middle  age,  gaunt  of 

[    82    ] 


CHARLOTTE   CUSHMAN 

figure  and  homely  of  feature,  who  spoke 
with  a  voice  naturally  high  in  pitch  and 
of  a  peculiar  hollow  quality,  but  of  great 
range.  The  beauties  and  all  the  other 
women  of  the  American  stage  were  mere 
children  beside  her.  Miss  Mary  Anderson, 
perhaps  the  most  celebrated  of  our  other 
home-born  actresses,  bore  about  the  same 
relation  to  her  that  a  march  of  Sousa  bears 
to  a  symphony  of  Beethoven.  Her  as- 
sumption of  Meg  Merrilies,  in  the  stage 
version  of  Guy  Mannering,  was  the  most 
famous  and  popular  of  her  efforts,  and 
well  merited  the  general  favor.  It  was 
one  of  the  few  impersonations  I  have  seen 
which  appeared  to  me  to  deserve  to  be 
called  "creations."  The  queer  old  bel- 
dame of  Sir  Walter's  novel,  a  figure 
strongly  outlined  by  his  strong  pen,  fur- 
nished Miss  Cushman  with  little  more  than 
the  germ  of  her  conception.  The  Meg 
Merrilies  of  the  actress  was  sometimes  of 
the  order  of  the  Scandinavian  Nornse  or 

C    ^3    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


of  the  Grecian  Fates,  sometimes  a  fierce 
old  nurse  bereft  of  her  nursling.  At 
moments  she  was  merely  a  picturesque 
gypsy  hag,  with  a  grim  sense  of  humor; 
anon,  in  speech  with  Harry  Bertram,  her 
crooning,  brooding  tenderness  and  yearn- 
ing were  more  than  maternal,  and  were 
poignantly  pathetic ;  at  the  height  of  her 
passion  she  was  a  terrible  being,  glaring 
or  glowering  with  eyes  that  reflected  the 
past  and  penetrated  the  future,  a  weird 
presence  dominating  the  dark  woods  and 
the  cavernous  hills,  an  inspired  Prophetess 
and  an  avenging  Fury.  The  wonder  of 
wonders  was  that  the  performance  was 
absolutely  convincing.  It  was  impossible 
to  laugh  at  it  at  any  point,  even  in  its 
most  fantastic  aspects;  impossible  to  with- 
hold from  it  either  full  credit  or  entire 
sympathy.  In  it  Miss  Cushman,  by  the 
magic  of  her  art,  compelled  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural  to  fuse. 

Her   interpretation    of    Lady   Macbeth 

[    S4    ] 


CHARLOTTE   CUSHMAN 

was  great,  the  actress  attempting  nothing 
novel  or  eccentric  in  her  conception  of 
the  character.  The  lines  in  the  perform- 
ance which  have  fastened  themselves  with 
hooks  of  steel  upon  my  inemory  are  the 
four  of  Lady  Macbeth's  soliloquy  near  the 
opening  of  the  second  scene  of  the  third 
act  of  the  tragedy  :  — 

"  Nought's  had,  all 's  spent, 
Where  our  desire  is  got  without  content : 
'T  is  safer  to  be  that  which  we  destroy 
Than  by  destruction  dwell  in  doubtful  joy." 

I  never  knew  a  voice  so  capable  as 
Miss  Cushman's  of  saturation  with  an- 
guish; and  in  no  other  text  do  I  remem- 
ber her  equally  to  have  used  her  gift  in 
this  kind.  The  words  were  accompanied 
by  the  wringing  of  her  hands;  and  through 
the  first  couplet,  as  she  gave  it,  the  listener 
was  made  to  gaze  into  the  depths  of  a 
soul,  soon  to  enter  the  night  of  madness, 
already  enduring  the  torments  of  hell. 
In  the  same  scene,  the  affectionate  solici- 

[    S5    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


tude  of  her  speeches  to  her  husband  pro- 
duced an  indescribable  effect  of  the  ter- 
rible and  the  piteous  in  combination.  A 
spectacle  it  was  of  a  great  love,  driven  by 
its  impulse  to  minister  to  the  loved  ob- 
ject; being  itself  utterly  and  fatalistically 
hopeless  and  barren  of  comfort  and  of  the 
power  to  comfort. 

But,  on  the  whole,  Miss  Cushman's 
impersonation  of  the  Queen  Katharine  of 
Henry  VIII.  must  be  accounted  her  crown- 
ing achievement,  and,  therefore,  the  high- 
est histrionic  work  of  any  American  ac- 
tress. I  shall  merely  note,  with  little 
detailed  comment,  the  grandeur  and  sim- 
plicity of  the  character  as  she  presented 
it  in  the  first  three  acts  of  the  play.  Here, 
her  Katharine  was  a  document  in  human 
flesh,  to  show  how  a  heavenly  minded 
humility  may  be  a  wellspring  of  dignity, 
how  true  womanly  sensibility  may  exalt 
the  queenliness  of  a  sovereign.  The  bear- 
ing of  Katharine  at  the  trial,  in  the  second 

[    86    ] 


CHARLOTTE   CUSHMAN 

act,  has  been  discussed  till  the  theme  is 
trite,  and  Mrs.  Siddons's  interpretation  of 
the  scene  and  of  its  most  famous  line  has 
been  enforced,  I  suppose,  upon  her  suc- 
cessors. The  great  daughter  of  the  house 
of  Kemble  may,  perhaps,  have  made  the 
attack  upon  Wolsey,  in 

"  Lord  Cardinal, 
To  you  I  speak," 

more  prepotent  and  tremendous  than  it 
was  possible  for  her  transatlantic  sister-in- 
art  to  make  it;  but  it  is  not  to  be  be- 
lieved that  any  player  could  have  sur- 
passed Miss  Cushman  in  the  unstudied 
eloquence  of  the  appeal  of  the  wife  and 
mother  to  the  hard  heart  of  the  Royal 
Voluptuary,  who  sat  "  under  the  cloth  of 
state,"  his  big  red  face,  as  Mademoiselle 
de  Bury  says,  almost  "  bursting  with  blood 
and  pride." 

It  was  in  the  second  scene  of  the  fourth 
act  that  Miss  Cushman's  genius  and  art 
found  their  loftiest  and  most  exquisite  ex- 

[    S7    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


pression.  Katharine  —  now  designated  in 
the  text  as  "  dowager,"  since  Anne  Bullen 
wears  the  crown  —  is  led  in,  "  sick,"  by 
her  two  faithful  attendants,  Griffith  and 
Patience.  The  careful  reader  of  the  text 
will  mark  the  transition  from  the  previous 
scene,  filled  with  the  pomp  and  throng 
of  Anne's  coronation  and  with  sensuous 
praises  of  the  young  queen's  beauty,  to 
the  plain  room  at  Kimbolton,  whence  a 
homely,  discarded  wife  of  middle  age  is 
passing  into  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death.  Nothing  of  its  kind  that  I  have 
heard  surpassed  the  actress's  use  of  the 
"  sick  "  tone  of  voice  through  all  of  Katha- 
rine's part  of  the  fine  dialogue.  "  Queru- 
lous "  is  the  only  adjective  that  will  describe 
that  tone,  and  yet  "  querulous "  is  rude 
and  misdescriptive.  The  note  was  that 
which  we  all  recognize  as  characteristic  of 
sufferers  from  sickness,  after  many  days 
of  pain,  or  when  an  illness  has  become 
chronic.    In  Katharine  this  tone  must  not 


[    S8    ] 


CHARLOTTE   CUSHMAN 

be  so  pronounced  as  to  imply  mental  or 
moral  weakness  or  a  loss  of  fortitude:  it 
was  but  one  of  the  symptoms  of  the  de- 
cay of  the  muddy  corporal  vesture  in 
which  her  glorious  soul  was  closed.  Miss 
Cushman  avoided  excess  with  the  nicest 
art,  but  quietly  colored  the  whole  scene 
with  this  natural  factor  of  pathos.  A  finely 
appealing  touch  was  made  on  the  words 
in  her  first  speech,  — 

"  Reach  a  chair: 
So  ;  now,  methinks,  I  feel  a  little  ease,"  — 

which  were  spoken  first  with  the  breaks 
and  halts  of  an  invalid,  then  with  a  slight 
comfortable  drop  in  pitch,  succeeded  by  a 
little  sigh  or  grunt  of  relief  at  the  period. 
All  that  followed  was  exceedingly  no- 
ble,—  her  pity  for  Wolsey  in  his  last  hu- 
miliations, her  pious  prayer  for  his  soul, 
her  just,  intuitive  comment  upon  his  griev- 
ous faults,  her  magnanimous  acceptance 
of  Griffith's  attributions  of  merit  to  her 
implacable  foe.    As  the  shadows  deepened 

[    S9    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


about  the  sick  woman,  Miss  Cushman's 
power  took  on  an  unearthly  beauty  and 
sweetness  which  keenly  touched  the  lis- 
tener's heart,  often  below  the  source  of 
tears.  Her  cry,  out  of  the  depths  of  her 
great  storm-beaten  heart,  of  infinite  long- 
ing for  the  rest  of  paradise,  after  her  vision 
of  the  "  blessed  troop,"  who  invited  her  to 
a  banquet,  — 

"  Spirits  of  peace,  where  are  ye?  are  ye  all  gone, 
And  leave  me  here  in  wretchedness  behind  ye  ?  "  — 

will  be  recalled  to-day  by  thousands  of 
men  and  women,  and  at  this  mere  men- 
tion the  lines  will  echo  and  reecho  through 
the  chambers  of  their  memories.  Katha- 
rine's one  flash  of  indignation  at  the  rude- 
ness of  a  messenger  —  queenly  wrath,  for 
an  instant  clearing  her  voice  and  lifting 
her  form  —  made  more  effective  the  rapid 
lapse  in  strength  which  naturally  followed. 
Capucius,  the  gentle  envoy  of  her  "  royal 
nephew,"  the  Emperor  Charles  V.,  has 
entered  with  messages  of  "  princely  com- 

[    90   ] 


CHARLOTTE   CUSHMAN 

mendations "  and  comfort  from  King 
Henry.  To  him  she  gave  her  last  charges, 
all  for  deeds  of  loving-kindness  to  those 
about  her,  with  an  eagerness  of  desire 
which  carried  through  her  broken  voice. 
Her  messages  of  meekness  and  unfal- 
tering affection  to  her  false  husband 
were,  of  all  her  touching  words,  the  most 
poignant.  In  her  commendation  of  her 
daughter  Mary  to  the  king,  who  is  be- 
sought "  a  little  to  love  "  the  child,  — 

"  for  her  mother's  sake  that  lov'd  him, 
Heaven  knows  hoiv  dearly ^^^  — 

and  in  her  word  of  farewell  to  Henry,  — 

"  Remember  me 
In  all  humility  unto  his  highness  : 
Say  his  long  trouble  now  is  passing" 
Out  of  this  world:  tell  hifji^  in  death  I  blessed 

hifn^ 
For  so  I  will"  — 

the  supreme  point  of  pathos  was  reached. 
The  throb  and  thrill  of  her  voice  in  the 
italicized   lines   deserve  never  to  be  for- 

[    91    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


gotten.  After  the  word  "  say  "  there  was 
a  second's  hesitation,  then  the  phrase  de- 
scriptive of  herself,  "  his  long  trouble,"  was 
breathed  in  a  sort  of  sob,  into  which  was 
concentrated  with  meek  unconsciousness 
a  damning  indictment  of  her  cruel  lord. 

Throughout  the  final  fifty  verses  of  the 
scene  Miss  Cushman  caused  Katharine's 
voice  to  grow  gradually  thicker,  as  the 
night  of  death  closed  in  upon  sight  and 
speech.  But  Katharine's  last  command, 
that  she  "  be  used  with  honour "  after 
her  death,  and,  "  although  unqueen'd,"  be 
interred  "yet  like  a  queen,  and  daugh- 
ter to  a  king,"  given  slowly  and  with  the 
clutch  of  the  Destroyer  upon  her  throat, 
was  superb  and  majestic.  The  queenly 
soul  had  prevailed,  and  wore  its  crown 
despite  the  treason  of  king,  prelates,  and 
courts.  After  Miss  Cushman,  all  recent 
attempts,  even  by  clever  actresses,  to  im- 
personate Katharine  of  Aragon  seem  to 
me  light,  petty,  and  ineffectual. 

[    92    ] 


XII 

E.    A.    SOTHERN,    Sr. 

THE  most  noted  achievement  of  one 
of  our  leading  comedians,  to  which 
alhision  was  made  in  a  previous 
chapter,  —  the  Lord  Dundreary  of  E.  A. 
Sothern,  the  elder,  —  is  peculiarly  worthy 
of  remembrance  and  of  being  freshly  re- 
called to  the  minds  of  all  who  witnessed 
the  performance.  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
that  the  records  of  the  theatre  furnish  no 
parallel  with  the  experience  of  the  actor 
and  the  public  in  respect  of  this  imper- 
sonation. 

Mr.  Sothern  was  a  player  of  ability, 
recognized  in  his  profession,  before  he 
became  celebrated.  The  received  story 
concerning  the  original  production  of  Tom 
Taylors  Our  American  Cousin  appears  to 

[    93    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


be  substantially  true.  The  manager  was 
very  anxious  for  the  triumph  of  the  new 
play,  hoping  for  a  reestablishment  of  pros- 
perity upon  the  basis  of  its  success,  and, 
in  order  to  increase  the  strength  of  a  very 
strong  cast,  purchased  the  reluctant  con- 
sent of  Mr.  Sothern  to  accept  the  unim- 
portant part  of  a  stage  fop  by  giving  him 
full  leave  to  "  gag  ;  "  that  is  to  say,  to  en- 
large and  vary  his  assigned  text  with  new 
matter  of  his  own  interpolation.  Out  of 
this  acceptance  and  this  license  a  unique 
histrionic  product  was  evolved. 

Even  at  the  first  representations  of  the 
comedy  the  public  eye  and  ear  were  taken 
and  filled  with  Mr.  Sothern's  extraordinary 
action  and  speech,  and  the  other  chief  play- 
ers, of  whom  several  ranked  with  the  best 
in  the  country,  in  spite  of  their  cleverness 
and  the  greater  significance  of  their  parts, 
found  themselves  relegated  into  the  back- 
ground. The  scheme  and  perspective  of  the 
author  were  much  impaired,  indeed  almost 

[    94    ] 


E.    A.    SOTHERN,    SR. 


inverted  as  in  a  moment.  It  was  something 
as  if  Osric  had  pushed  himself  in  front  of 
Hamlet.  And  no  one  was  more  surprised 
than  Mr.  Sothern  himself.  Whence  the 
actor  derived  the  outside  of  his  impersona- 
tion I  have  not  been  informed.  Its  sub- 
stratum was  the  conventional  dandy  of  the 
theatre,  of  course,  —  one  of  the  foolishest 
and  unrealest  of  fictions,  —  and  Continental 
Europe  had  evolved  a  caricature  of  the 
traveling  Britisher  which  adumbrated  Mr. 
Sothern's  make-up  ;  but  the  aggregation 
of  Lord  Dundreary's  oddities  could  hardly 
have  originated  with  the  actor.  I  think  he 
must  have  encountered  somewhere  an  Eng- 
lishman whose  whole  dress,  speech,  and 
manner  displayed  the  courage  of  a  mon- 
strous eccentricity.  Here,  at  all  events, 
was  a  bird  of  a  new  feather,  —  of  a  new 
variety,  species,  genus. 

Who  that  looked  upon  the  noble  lord 
can  ever  forget  the  glare  of  his  monocle, 
and  the  rigid  play  of  the  muscles  that  held 

[    95    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


the  glass  in  place  ;  the  corrugations  of 
his  anxious  brow ;  the  perpetually  varied 
movements  of  his  lips  and  chin  as  he  strug- 
gled to  utter  himself  ;  the  profuse  hair  of 
the  period  ;  his  long,  silky  whiskers  5  the 
hop-and-skip  walk,  —  that  gait  which  was 
not  of  "  Christian,  pagan,  nor  man  ; "  his 
talk,  in  which  a  combined  lisp,  stutter,  and 
stammer,  punctuated  by  quaint  gurgles  and 
chuckles,  made  an  unprecedented  novelty 
in  human  vocalism  ;  and  the  long,  sumptu- 
ous coats  and  dressing  gowns  and  ampli- 
tudinous trousers  which  he  affected  ?  The 
whole  thing  came  close  to  the  verge  of 
gross  absurdity,  but  through  the  actor's 
rare  gifts  in  drollery  and  vivacious  inten- 
sity was  accepted,  freely  and  with  a  deli- 
cious sense  of  immersion  in  a  new  kind 
of  fun,  by  the  whole  public,  gentle  and 
simple. 

If  Mr.  Sothern  had  gone  no  further  than 
to  produce  the  strange  figure  which  has 
been  partially  described,  and  to  make   it 

[    96    ] 


E.    A.    SOTHERN,    SR 


effective  for  mirth,  the  event  would  have 
deserved  only  a  mere  mention.  But  he 
proceeded,  with  processes  and  results  like 
those  of  creative  genius,  to  broaden  and 
deepen  his  conception,  until  his  Lord  Dun- 
dreary, without  any  loss,  or  rather  with  an 
increase,  of  his  comicality,  came  to  have 
a  definite  individuality,  and  to  exemplify 
certain  common  weaknesses  and  limita- 
tions, which  cause  the  brightest  of  us  acute 
misery  at  times,  but  in  him  were  chronic 
and  the  source  of  continual  discomfort. 
The  nobleman's  text  and  business  were 
enlarged  fourfold,  and  the  rest  of  the  play 
was  proportionally  reduced.  The  devel- 
oped Dundreary  was  occasionally  asinine, 
but  he  was  by  no  means  the  idiot  that  the 
crowd  had  at  first  imagined  him  to  be.  In 
truth,  it  now  became  evident  that  the  noble 
lord  had  a  mind  of  his  own,  —  peculiar,  but 
real,  capable  of  clearness,  capable  even  of 
penetration  and  astuteness,  but  cursed  with 
a  tendency  to  err  in  dealing  with  the  sur- 

[    97    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


face  resemblance  of  things.  Life  was  a 
muddle  by  reason  of  these  recurring  like- 
nesses, and  language  was  a  pitfall  or  a 
labyrinth.  It  was  a  genuine  grief  and  trial 
to  him,  though  very  amusing  to  the  specta- 
tors, when  he  came  upon  another  of  "  those 
things  that  no  fellah  can  find  out."  His 
weakness  was  carried  to  the  point  of  farci- 
cal extravagance,  but  there  was  something 
to  sympathize  with  when  he  was  most  ridic- 
ulous, and  one  had  new  visions  both  of  the 
inherent  weakness  and  the  latent  capacities 
of  our  language  when  he  said,  with  eager 
hitches  and  emphatic  bursts,  to  Lieutenant 
Vernon :  "  Of  course  you  can  pass  your 
examination  ;  what  I  want  to  know  is,  can 
you  go  through  it  ?  "  Closely  allied  to  this 
mental  infirmity,  and  another  important  ele- 
ment in  the  humor  of  the  conception,  was 
Dundreary's  absolute  incapacity  to  cherish 
more  than  one  idea  at  a  time.  A  single 
thought,  whether  great  or  small,  brimmed 
his  brain,  and  his  cerebral  machinery  was 


C    9S    ] 


E.    A.    SOTHERN,    SR. 


thrown  completely  out  of  gear  by  the  in- 
trusion of  another  idea.  The  rhythmic  mo- 
tion of  Asa  Trenchard's  foot  made  it  impos- 
sible for  him  to  remember  the  words  of  his 
song  ;  the  accidental  view  of  a  split  hair 
in  his  whiskers  caused  him  to  be  oblivious 
of  Georgina's  narrative  j  a  sudden  discov- 
ery of  her  chignon,  when  her  back  was 
modestly  turned,  and  the  train  of  conse- 
quent meditation,  broke  him  off  in  the 
midst  of  an  offer  of  marriage. 

The  funniest  and  most  highly  illustra- 
tive incident  of  this  sort  was  the  famous 
passage  in  which  his  search  for  his  mis- 
placed trousers  pocket  passed  from  a  usual 
automatic  act  to  a  mind-absorbing  effort, 
and — with  a  perfect  parallelism  of  effect 
at  every  stage  —  at  first  left  his  words  un- 
checked, then  gradually  slowed  his  tongue, 
then  stopped  his  speech  altogether,  finally 
required  the  united  devotion  of  hand,  eyes, 
and  brain  to  discover  the  missing  recep- 
tacle.   Dundreary's  mind  had  —  to  change 

[    99    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


the  figure  —  a  single  track,  with  very  few- 
switches,  and  his  confusions  of  intellect 
were  the  result  of  collisions  of  trains  of 
thought,  running  in  opposite  directions. 
In  a  large  way,  Dundreary  was  an  inclu- 
sive satire  upon  the  small  stupidities  of  our 
human  nature,  and  his  most  inane  utter- 
ances awakened  answering  echoes,  as  has 
been  said,  in  the  consciousness  of  the  most 
sensible  men  and  women. 
-    !•  J  Mr.  Sothern's   Dundreary  became,   in- 

'     ^/    -,,^^  /      deed,    something   more    than  "a  definite 
''^':!^a<.jO'^<J^'' ^♦'^individuality,"  in  the  phrase  just  now  used; 
•    '    /    .  V       he  passed  into  a  genuine  and  convincing 
personality.    He  was  a  true  product  of  in- 
'^  "^     vention  and   synthetic   art,  and   even   his 
extreme  eccentricities  were  soon  accepted 
^>v       .       as   innate,  unconscious  sincerities,  not  as 
6^i/A;tv<>/(/)/ii/^/<n  conscious  affectations.    The  noble  gentle- 
(J  /I'     man  grew  to  be  lovable,  and  the  quaint 

conjunction  in  him  of  eager  good  nature 
with  nervous  irritability  proved  to  be  a 
source  of  charm  as  well   as   mirth.    Ex- 


E.    A.    SOTHERN,    SR 


traordinary  were  the  variously  combined 
expressions  of  complaisance,  stupidity,  hu- 
mor, and  acuteness  which  flitted  over  his 
countenance,  and  the  diversity  of  intona- 
tions which  finely  indicated  the  proportions 
of  his  much-mixed  emotions  was  wonder- 
ful. A  page  might  be  filled  with  descrip- 
tions of  his  different  smiles;  the  broad, 
effulgent  smile  which  filled  his  face  when 
he  thought  he  had  struck  a  brilliant  con- 
versational idea,  and  his  dubious,  tentative, 
come-and-go  flicker  of  a  grin  when  he  was 
feeling  his  mental  way,  being  two  striking 
examples  in  the  vast  variety.  The  surprises 
which  he  effected  by  his  comic  gift  were 
often  overpowering,  and  made  the  specta- 
tor fairly  gasp  and  choke,  as  two  contrary 
currents  of  mirth  suddenly  poured  into  the 
unprepared  brain. 

I  think  the  funniest  small  thing  I  ever 
noted  at  a  theatrical  performance  was  his 
delivery  of  one  of  Dundreary's  speeches 
in   connection   with   Sam's   "  letter   from 


[     lOI      ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


America."  The  passage  began,  ^'  Dear 
Bwother,"  Mr.  Sothern  reading  the  open- 
ing words  of  the  epistle;  then  he  made 
one  of  his  pauses,  and,  with  a  character- 
istic cHck  and  hitch  in  his  voice,  com- 
mented, — 

"  Sam  alwa3's  calls  me  his  bwother  — 
because  neither  of  us  ever  had  a  sister." 

Left  without  further  description,  the 
phrase  might  pass  with  the  reader  as  rather 
droll;  but  on  the  words  "  because  neither 
of  us  ever  had  a  sister  "  the  actor's  voice 
became  instantly  saturated  with  mock  pa- 
thos, and  the  sudden  absurd  demand  for 
sympathy  reached  the  amazed  auditor  with 
soul-tickling  effect. 

Mr.  Sothern  played  several  other  parts 
brilliantly  well.  His  impersonation  of 
David  Garrick  was  surpassed  upon  our 
stage  only  by  Salvini's.  Dundreary's  Bro- 
ther Sam  he  made  an  interesting  figure  of 
fun;  and  during  the  latter  years  of  his  life 
he  achieved  great  success  in  The  Crushed 

[      I02     ] 


E.    A.    SOTHERN,    SR. 


Tragedian,  a  drama  reconstructed,  for  the 
actor's  purposes,  from  The  Prompter's 
Box,  of  Henry  J.  Byron,  in  which  Mr. 
Sothern  took  the  part  of  an  unfortunate 
player,  whose  bearing  and  speech  in  pri- 
vate life  were  portentously  and  melodra- 
matically theatrical.  There  were  many 
good  passages  in  the  comedy,  and  one  of 
the  most  notable  occurred  in  a  passage- 
at-arms  between  the  thin,  out-at-elbows 
tragedian  and  a  large-girthed,  purse-proud 
banker.  The  actor  had  spoken  of  "  the 
profession,"  meaning,  of  course,  his  own; 
the  banker  answered,  with  a  sneer,  "  Oh! 
you  call  it  a  profession,  do  you  ?  "  and  the 
player  replied,  with  superb  conviction  of 
superiority,  "Yes,  we  do;  banking  we  call 
a  trade,"  —  the  retort  hitting  rather  harder 
in  London  than  here,  because  in  England 
"  the  trade  of  banking  "  was  a  familiar  and 
technical  phrase. 

The   dialogue   which   was   last  quoted, 
and  a  half  line  of  comment  passed  above 

[    103    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


upon  a  stage  fiction,  come  together  in  my 
mind.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  hear  close 
observers  of  the  life  of  cities  speak  of  the 
peculiar  remoteness  and  aloofness  of  the 
theatrical  profession  from  other  orders  of 
humanity;  but  only  a  very  small  propor- 
tion even  of  thoughtful  persons  come  near 
to  realizing  how  complete  is  the  separa- 
tion of  the  actor  and  actress  from  other 
men  and  women.  The  conditions  of  mod- 
ern life,  with  the  prevailing  passion  for 
publicity,  incarnated  in  the  newspaper 
reporter,  whose  necessity  knows  no  law, 
and  expended  with  special  force  upon  the 
people  of  the  theatre,  who  often  seem  to 
invite  notoriety,  have,  in  fact,  accomplished 
very  little  in  breaking  down  the  barriers 
which  divide  "  the  profession "  from  the 
rest  of  the  world.  The  race  of  gypsies  does 
not  lead  an  existence  more  alien  from  its 
entourage  than  the  order  of  players.  Here 
and  there,  actors  or  actresses  of  uncom- 
mon distinction  or  definite  social  ambition, 

[    104    ] 


E.   A.    SOTHERN,    SR 


sought  or  seeking,  make  appearances  in 
"  society;  "  but  such  irruptions  are  few 
and  intermittent.  Mr.  Irving  is  the  only 
great  artist  of  our  day  who  has  made  so- 
cial prestige  a  steady  feeder  of  histrionic 
success.  Edwin  Booth  and  William  War- 
ren, with  all  their  rare  gifts,  grace,  and 
charm,  were  practically  unknown  in  pri- 
vate, except  to  other  actors  and  a  few  per- 
sonal friends.  The  prejudice  of  the  outside 
world  has  doubtless  been  an  important 
agent  in  effecting  this  segregation;  but  if 
that  prejudice,  which  has  been  gradually 
diminishing,  were  wholly  to  disappear,  the 
situation  would  remain  substantially  un- 
changed, I  am  convinced,  for  centuries 
to  come. 


[    105    1 


XIII 
The  Isolation  of  Actors 

THIS  condition,  which  from  some 
important  points  of  view  is  fortu- 
nate, from  others  unfortunate,  and 
.from  nearly  all  inevitable,  is  unique  in- 
deed. Here  we  have  the  only  large  class 
of  workers  which  keeps  the  world  at  arm's 
length.  Clergymen,  physicians,  lawyers, 
architects,  merchants,  tradesmen,  and 
laborers  of  all  sorts  by  the  very  terms  of 
their  toil,  are  brought-  into  constant  per- 
sonal contact  with  parishioners,  patients, 
clients,  or  customers.  Even  painters  and 
sculptors  must  needs  be  in  touch  with 
their  patrons.  But  that  thin,  impassable 
row  of  blazing  lamps,  which  rims  the 
front  of  the  stage,  accomplishes  what  the 
Great  Wall  of  China  was  built  to  accom- 

[    io6    ] 


THE    ISOLATION    OF   ACTORS 

plish.  Behind  them  is  the  sole  "  profes- 
sion ; "  in  front  of  them  the  barbarous 
laity.  If  the  player  desired  to  break  down 
the  partition,  he  would  scarcely  be  able 
to  do  so.  From  the  more  important  social 
gatherings,  which  take  place  in  the  even- 
ing, both  actress  and  actor  are  necessarily 
absent ;  the  actor  may  vote,  if  he  can  ac- 
quire a  residence  and  contrive  to  be  in  his 
own  city  on  election  day,  but  it  is  impos- 
sible that  he  should  take  any  active  part 
in  politics  or  participate  in  preliminary 
meetings,  caucuses,  and  "  rallies,"  which 
are  held  at  night  ;  and  as  to  attendance  at 
church,  the  player  encounters,  in  the  first 
place,  the  difficulty,  inseparable  from  his 
wandering  life,  of  making  a  connection 
with  a  parish,  and  besides,  in  recent  years, 
is  almost  constantly  required  to  travel  on 
Sunday,  passing  from  a  Saturday  evening's 
performance  in  one  town  to  a  Monday 
morning's  rehearsal  in  another. 

Quite  unrelated,  however,  to  these  out- 

[    107    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


ward  limitations  of  the  histrionic  life  is 
the  disposition  of  the  players  themselves. 
They  compose  a  guild  of  extraordinary 
independence,  which,  in  spite  of  its  vague 
and  shifting  boundaries,  intensely  feels 
and  sturdily  maintains  its  es-prit  de  corps. 
"Independence  of  temper,"  as  Mr.  Leon 
H.  Vincent  lately  said,  "  is  a  marked  char- 
acteristic of  the  theatre  and  of  theatri- 
cal life.  The  stage  is  a  world  to  itself, 
and  a  world  altogether  impatient  of  ex- 
ternal control."  One  cause  of  this  temper 
is  to  be  found  in  the  legal  disabilities 
under  which  the  player  labored  in  most 
countries  for  many  years.  The  reaction 
was  sure.  Treated  as  an  outlaw,  the  player 
became  a  law  unto  himself.  But  the  causa 
causans  lies  in  the  peculiar  conditions  of 
temperament  which  inhere  in  most  actors, 
and  in  the  singular  concentration  and  de- 
votion of  energy,  essential  to  success  upon 
the   stage,  which  are   exercised  upon  the 


[    io8    ] 


THE   ISOLATION   OF   ACTORS 

fictive  material  of  the  theatre.  The  rule, 
to  which  there  have  been  important  but 
few  exceptions,  is  that  the  actor,  like  the 
acrobat,  must  be  caught  and  practiced 
young,  in  order  that  the  suppleness  re- 
quired in  the  mimetic  as  in  the  gymnastic 
art  may  be  attained  ;  and,  as  a  result  of 
the  application  of  this  rule,  nearly  all  the 
great  body  of  actors  are  devoid  of  general 
academic  and  scholastic  training.  Their 
culture  is  the  culture  of  their  own  private 
stud}^,  worked  out  in  the  green-room  and 
on  the  stage.  It  is  marvelous  what  acqui- 
sitions many  of  them  make  with  such 
handicaps  ;  but  their  general  narrowness 
of  mental  vision  may  be  inferred.  Practi- 
cally out  of  relation,  then,  with  the  social, 
political,  and  religious  life  of  the  entire 
rest  of  mankind,  immersed  in  the  unreal 
realities  of  the  mimic  life,  driven  both  by 
natural  impulse  and  by  professional  compe- 
tition to  whet  their  talent  to  the  sharpest 

[    109    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


edge,  the  guild  of  actors  is  the  most  charm- 
ing, naif,  clever,  contracted,  conventional, 
disorderly,  sensitive,  insensible,  obstinate, 
generous,  egotistic  body  in  the  world,  and 
—  "  unique."  Players  are  as  conservative 
and  as  superstitious  as  sailors  ;  they  have 
but  one  theme,  one  material  of  thought 
and  conversation,  —  the  theatre,  and,  of 
course,  themselves  as  exponents  of  the 
theatre.  They  hold  to  their  traditions  like 
North  American  Indians,  and  their  con- 
ventions have  the  perdurable  toughness 
of  iron.  Be  the  thing  bad  or  good,  once 
it  is  firmly  fastened  upon  the  theatre,  it 
sticks  indefinitely.  The  stage  fop,  now  al- 
most obsolete,  was  a  survival,  probably, 
from  the  period  of  the  Restoration,  and 
drawled  and  strutted  over  the  boards  for 
hundreds  of  years  after  he  had  disappeared 
from  society.  Yet  actors  are  distinguished 
by  plasticity.  That  they  succeed  as  well 
as  they  do  in  reproducing  the  contempo- 


[    "o    ] 


THE   ISOLATION    OF   ACTORS 

rary  life  which  they  see  only  by  snatches 
is  little  short  of  a  miracle,  and  demon- 
strates the  extreme  speed  and  delicacy  in 
observation  of  some  of  them^  and  the 
large  imitative  gift  of  others,  together 
with  a  power  of  divination,  which  is  an 
attribute  of  genius.  Through  the  opera- 
tion of  natural  selection,  they  are  practi- 
cally birds  of  a  feather,  and  the  most  do- 
cile and  intimate  layman  never  quite  learns 
their  language  or  long  feels  at  home  in 
their  company.  That  it  is  highly  desirable, 
for  a  dozen  grave  reasons,  that  the  actor 
should  be  less  a  stranger  to  his  fellow  men 
is  obvious  ;  and  also  it  is  obvious  that,  to 
the  end  of  the  world,  success  upon  the 
stage  will  involve  in  the  successful  artist 
a  peculiar  attitude  of  mind,  a  peculiar 
adaptability  of  temperament,  and  a  rare 
singleness  of  devotion,  which  must  sepa- 
rate him  from  the  laity.  Comparative  iso- 
lation will  always  be  a  condition  of  high 

[    III    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


achievement  in  the  histrionic  profession, 
and  the  stage  will  always  have  a  climate 
and  an  atmosphere  of  its  own,  with  which 
the  thermometers  and  barometers  of  the 
outer  world  will  have  no  immediate  rela- 
tion. 


[      112     ] 


XIV 
Charles  Fechter 

DURING  the  season  of  1869-70 
Charles  Fechter  pla3^ed  for  the 
first  time  in  the  United  States, 
appearing  first  in  New  York,  and  opening, 
in  March  of  the  latter  year,  at  the  Bos- 
ton Theatre  as  Hamlet.  He  was  born  in 
London,  in  1824,  and  was  the  son  of  an 
Englishwoman  and  Jean  Maria  Fechter, 
a  sculptor,  who  was  of  German  descent, 
but  a  native  of  France.  Notwithstanding 
the  mixture  of  his  blood,  Charles  Fechter 
was  wholly  French  in  his  affiliations  and 
sympathies,  loathed  Germany  and  all  its 
ways,  works,  and  words,  and  was  careful  to 
pronounce  "  Fayshtair "  his  surname,  the 
first  syllable  of  which  Boston,  because  of 
its  extreme  culture,  persisted  and  persists 

[    113    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


in  giving  with  the  North  Teutonic  gut- 
tural. In  his  early  childhood  he  was  taken 
to  France,  where  he  grew  up,  and,  after 
dabbling  for  a  short  time  in  the  clay  of 
the  sculptor,  studied  for  the  stage,  and  at 
the  age  of  twenty  appeared  successfully, 
in  Le  Mari  de  la  Veuve,  at  the  Theatre 
Fran9ais,  of  whose  company  he  afterwards 
became  jeune  -premier.  In  Paris  he  at- 
tained a  great  reputation,  though  he  was 
often  censured  for  his  audacious  disregard 
of  the  conventions  of  the  classic  drama. 
He  had  had  a  polyglot  education,  and 
early  acquired  a  good  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish, which  he  taught  himself  to  speak  flu- 
ently and  with  a  generally  correct  accent, 
though  it  was  impossible  for  him  quite  to 
master  the  intonations  of  the  language. 
In  i860,  with  characteristic  boldness,  he 
assailed  London,  playing  Ruy  Bias  in 
English  at  the  Princess's  Theatre.  His 
success  was  signal,  and  for  ten  years  as  a 
star  he  made  England  his  firmament,  also 


[    "4    ] 


CHARLES   FECHTER 


holding  the  lease  of  the  Lyceum  Thea- 
tre from  1862  to  1867.  He  was  sped  on 
his  transatlantic  way  by  the  praise  of  most 
of  the  critical  journals  of  the  great  me- 
tropolis, and  by  the  warm  eulogium  of  his 
friend  Charles  Dickens.  His  complete 
abandonment  of  England  for  this  country 
tends  to  prove  that  he  had  outworn  the  best 
of  his  favor  in  the  British  Isles. 

In  New  York  Fechter's  interpretation 
of  Hamlet  was  greeted  with  a  chorus  of 
disapproval,  broken  by  emphatic  praise 
from  several  high  sources,  and  his  innova- 
tions upon  received  traditions  as  to  the 
outer  particulars  of  the  performance  were 
the  subject  of  much  disparagement.  The 
public,  however,  were  keenly  interested 
in  all  his  work,  especially  in  his  assump- 
tions of  Ruy  Bias,  Claude  Melnotte,  and 
other  romantic  characters.  I  thought,  and 
think,  that  most  of  the  vexed  questions  of 
detail  alluded  to  were  matters  of  leather 
and    prunello.    Fechter's  reasoning  —  de- 

[    1^5    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


rived  from  a  distinguished  commentator 
—  that  Hamlet  was  a  Dane,  and  that 
Danes  are  fair,  with  the  practical  conclu- 
sion that  he  played  the  Prince  of  Denmark 
in  a  blond  wig,  seemed  to  me  of  no  import 
either  for  praise  or  blame;  and  as  long  as 
he,  or  another  actor,  did  not  defeat  the 
Poet  in  letter  or  in  spirit,  I  was  willing 
that  he  should  find,  indicate,  and  manipu- 
late the  pictures-in-little  of  the  elder  Ham- 
let and  Claudius  in  any  way  that  suited 
his  taste  or  convenience.-  His  conception 
of  the  melancholy  prince  was  a  different 
matter,  and  from  first  to  last  I  held  to  the 
opinion  that  he  did  not  rightly  indicate 
the  weaknesses  of  spirit  and  temperament 
with  which  Shakespeare  has  chosen  to 
disable  his  otherwise  noblest  ideal,  for 
the  reproof,  correction,  and  instruction  in 
righteousness  of  mankind  throughout  the 
ages.  The  general  public  did  not  much 
concern  itself,  of  course,  with  questions 
as  to  the  actor's  fidelity  to  the  dramatist's 

[    "6    ] 


CHARLES   FECHTER 


psychic  scheme,  but  immersed  itself  in  the 
novel  and  agreeable  sensations  excited  by 
Fechter's  vivid  and  impressive  playing. 
New  York,  always  more  closely  critical 
of  acting  than  other  American  cities,  and 
much  influenced,  no  doubt,  by  Mr.  Win- 
ter's severe  censure,  held  out  in  many 
quarters  against  the  new  Hamlet.  But 
Boston,  manifestly  relieved  by  the  change 
from  Edwin  Booth's  more  conventional 
and  studied,  though  far  more  just  and 
intuitive  impersonation,  incontinently  ac- 
cepted the  French  artist's  performance, 
satisfied  for  the  time  with  its  outward  and 
visible  charms,  its  vitality,  directness,  and 
fervid  sincerity. 

Mr.  Fechter,  at  this  part  of  his  career, 
was,  indeed,  an  exceedingly  fascinating 
and  eloquently  appealing  actor.  He  was 
somewhat  handicapped  by  the  plainness 
of  his  features  and  the  bluntness  of  his 
figure;  but  his  gift  in  facial  expression 
was  varied,  and  his  countenance,  at  mo- 

[    117    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


ments  of  stress,  readily  took  on  majesty 
or  strength,  sometimes  delicate  spiritual 
beauty.  His  voice  was  rich  and  sweet, 
and  easily  capable  of  emotional  saturation, 
though  not  of  the  widest  range.  His  for- 
eign intonations  were  numerous,  as  has 
been  implied,  and  were  very  funny  when 
mimicked;  but,  while  he  was  acting,  he 
so  possessed  his  auditors  that  they  seldom 
found  opportunity  to  be  amused.  Per- 
sonally, I  have  generally  felt,  and  often 
expressed,  a  distaste  for  broken  English 
on  the  stage,  and  I  regard  the  easy-going 
toleration  of  the  imperfect  speech  of  alien 
actors  as  one  of  the  signs  of  the  rawness 
of  our  public.  Fechter's  failings  annoyed 
me  less,  however,  than  those  in  this  kind 
of  other  foreigners;  and,  after  a  time,  I 
even  learned  to  tolerate  the  queerest  of  his 
blunders,  probably  because  they  seldom 
took  the  shape  of  faulty  emphasis.  Several 
important  and  common  words  he  never 
mastered;  even  "  love  "  —  the  verbal  talis- 

[    ii8    ] 


CHARLES  FECHTER 


man,  treasure,  pabulum,  and  sine  qua  non 
of  the  comedian  —  he  pronounced  in  a 
mean  between  loaf  ?c!\6i  loave,  to  the  end 
of  his  career.  But  with  the  appearance 
of  Fechter  American  audiences  first  came 
in  contact  with  an  actor  of  great  natural 
gifts  and  Continental  training,  who  used 
the  English  language  at  his  performances. 
In  many  ways  the  experience  was  a  re- 
velation. Here  was  the  culture  of  the 
Comedie  Frangaise,  conveyed  through  the 
vernacular,  and  not  under  the  immense 
disadvantage  of  exposition  in  a  foreign 
tongue.  One  could  see,  as  Fechter  played, 
the  potency  of  abundant  but  perfectly  ap- 
propriate gesture,  the  action  fitted  to  the 
very  word,  the  word  to  the  action,  accord- 
ing to  Hamlet's  prescript;  the.trained  apti- 
tude for  rapid  transitions  of  feeling;  the 
large  freedom  of  movement;  the  ease  and 
force  of  style  which  seemed  spontaneous 
and  unstudied,  when  most  refined.  After 
an    experience  of  Fechter  in  tragedy  or 

■    [    1^9    ] 


A   DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


romance,  one  returned  to  our  great  native 
artists,  and  found  them,  by  contrast,  rather 
cool  and  starchy. 

Nature,  which    had   definitely,    though 
not  meanly,   limited  Mr.  Fechter  on  the 
higher  side  of  the  intellect,  had  endowed 
him  with  a  temperament  of  rare  sensibility 
and  ardor.    Even  if  he  had  conceived  the 
character  of  Hamlet  aright,  I  doubt  if  he 
would  have  found  it  possible  to  embody 
his  conception.    Hamlet  sometimes  seems 
to  be  doing,  and,  when  he  is  only  mark- 
ing time,  tries  to  make  believe  that  he  is 
marching.    I  imagine  that  Fechter  could 
not  have  contrived  to  import  into  the  part 
of   the    prince    that    tentative,    indecisive 
quality  which  characterizes  Hamlet's  love 
for  talking  and  thinking,  and  his  disinclina- 
tion for  persistent  doing,  which  is  made 
only  plainer  by  occasional  unpremeditated 
acts  of  violence.    His  Hamlet's  feet  were 
planted  firmly  on  the  earth;  and  his  head 
was   six   feet   above    them,  —  not   in  the 


[     I20    ] 


CHARLES   FECHTER 


clouds,  where  Shakespeare  put  it.  But 
when  the  matter  in  hand  was  one  of  clear 
romance;  when  youthful  love,  or  the 
power  of  loyalty,  or  the  spirit  of  daring 
was  to  be  exemplified;  indeed,  when  any 
common  passion  was  to  be  shown  in 
any  usual  way,  Mr.  Fechter's  playing 
was  eminently  effective.  As  Ruy  Bias, 
his  bearing  in  his  servile  attire  at  the 
outset  was  singularly  impressive,  —  true 
native  dignity  without  presumption,  deep 
pride  without  arrogance,  the  simplicity 
of  a  great,  unsuspicious  nature.  His  first 
revelation  of  his  passion  for  the  queen 
awakened  profound  sympathy;  and  in  his 
interview  with  Don  Ceesar,  wherein  one 
noted  the  manly  affectionateness  of  his 
love  for  his  friend,  the  actor's  power  of 
intensity  of  utterance  and  of  swift  transi- 
tions of  feeling  had  remarkable  illustra- 
tion: at  one  moment  his  heart's  secret 
rushed  forth  as  if  it  could  not  be  stayed; 
and  in  the  same  breath  he  checked  himself 


[      121      ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


in  a  spasm  of  self-disgust  at  his  folly,  with 
a  half-mournful,  half-humorous  gesture  of 
deprecation,  but  only  to  be  swept  away 
again  by  the  torrent  of  feeling  that  must 
relieve  itself  by  speech.  In  the  great  final 
act  the  actor's  manifold  power  attained  its 
maximum.  Through  his  soliloquy,  dark 
with  his  own  woe,  yet  resonant  with  ex- 
ultation over  the  apparent  deliverance  of 
the  queen,  the  agonizing  encounter  with 
his  mistress,  the  discovery  of  the  plot  to 
ruin  her,  the  triumphant  entrance  of  Don 
Salluste,  the  humiliating  disclosure  of  his 
humble  birth,  and  the  insulting  proposals 
of  the  nobleman  to  the  wretched  queen,  — 
through  all  these  scenes  the  passion  of  the 
actor  grew  hotter  and  hotter,  until  it  cul- 
minated in  the  thrilling  passage  where  he 
snatched  his  enemy's  sword  from  its  scab- 
bard, and,  with  the  voice  of  an  avenging 
angel,  proclaimed  his  purpose  to  slay  the 
don  as  a  venomous  snake.  In  all  that  fol- 
lowed his  action  was  of  magnetic  quality; 

[      122     ] 


CHARLES   FECHTER 


and  in  his  final  dying  instants,  in  which, 
after  the  proud  self-abnegation  with  which 
he  declared  himself  a  lackey,  he  held  out 
his  arms  to  embrace  the  queen,  the  eager, 
reverent  tenderness  of  the  action,  and  the 
look  of  love  and  exaltation  which  trans- 
figured his  face  before  it  stiffened  in  death, 
were  profoundly  stirring  and  very  beauti- 
ful. There  was  no  rant  in  any  passage, 
and  no  evidence  of  deficient  self-control. 
The  charge  of  extravagance  might  as  well 
have  been  made  against  a  tornado  as  against 
Mr.  Fechter's  Ruy  Bias,  at  its  height. 

In  The  Lady  of  Lyons  he  achieved  a 
similar  triumph,  which  was  perhaps  more 
remarkable  because  of  the  material  in 
which  he  was  there  compelled  to  work. 
Ruy  Bias  may  be  called  great,  without 
much  strain  upon  the  adjective  ;  but  Bul- 
wer's  play  is  a  crafty  thing  of  gilt,  rouge, 
and  cardboard.  Fechter's  acting  redeemed 
the  English  work  from  the  artificiality  and 
tawdriness  which  seemed  of  its  essence. 


[    123    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


gave  it  new  comeliness,  and  breathed  into 
it  the  breath  of  life.  The  damnable  plot 
upon  which  the  action  of  the  play  turns 
has  cast  a  shadow  over  the  hero,  which 
his  fine  speeches  and  copious  tears,  upon 
the  tongues  and  cheeks  of  other  actors, 
have  failed  to  remove.  But  Fechter  so  in- 
tensified the  cruelty  of  the  insult  received, 
and  made  the  quality  of  Claude's  love  so 
pure,  lofty,  and  ardent,  that  he  delivered 
the  character  from  its  long  disgrace.  It  is 
possible  to  raise  a  question  as  to  the  depth 
of  the  feeling  displayed  ;  but,  leaving  that 
question  unanswered,  I  commit  myself  to 
the  assertion  that  Mr.  Fechter's  love-mak- 
ing was  the  best  I  ever  witnessed  upon 
the  stage.  In  the  gift  of  self-delivery  into 
one  short  action  or  utterance,  also,  I  think 
he  surpassed  all  his  compeers,  though  Sal- 
vini,  Booth,  Irving,  and  many  other  lead- 
ing actors  have  excelled  in  the  same  way. 
In  the  third  act  of  The  Lady  of  Lyons, 
when    he    turned    upon    Beauseant    and 

[    124    ] 


CHARLES   FECHTER 


Glavis,  there  was  a  remarkable  display  of 
this  power  in  Mr.  Fechter,  when  he  made 
three  commonplace  words,  "Away  with 
you  ! "  fall  upon  his  tormentors  like  a  bolt 
from  a  thundercloud.  Mr.  Booth  played 
Ruy  Bias  and  Claude  Melnotte  rather 
often  in  his  early  life,  and  briefly  returned 
to  them  a  few  years  before  his  death. 
His  performance  of  neither  part  —  though 
his  playing  did  not  lack  distinction,  of 
course  —  was  worthy  to  be  ranked  with 
Fechter's.  Booth's  Ruy  Bias  seemed  dry 
and  slow  in  comparison  with  the  French  ac- 
tor's, and  Booth's  Claude  Melnotte,  which 
resembled  a  double  dahlia,  was  insignifi- 
cant beside  an  impersonation  that  had  the 
splendor  and  fragrance  of  an  Oriental  rose. 
Fechter  was  essentially  a  player  of  melo- 
drama, however,  —  a  master  of  the  ex- 
terior symbolism  of  the  histrionic  art,  but 
fully  qualified  neither  to  search  into  the 
spiritual  and  intellectual  depths  of  the 
greatest  dramatic  conceptions,  nor  to  carry 

[    125    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


out  such  conceptions  to  their  just  extent, 
or  with  a  large  grasp  of  their  compHcated 
parts,  and  the  relations  and  proportions  of 
the  same.  I  have  said  bluntly  that  in  ro- 
mantic characters,  such  as  the  two  which 
have  been  selected  for  special  comment, 
he  much  excelled  our  leading  American 
actor.  But  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of 
Mr.  Fechter  as  interpreting  King  Lear  or 
lago  or  Macbeth  with  any  approach  to 
adequacy.  His  playing  was  almost  perfect 
in  its  order,  but  the  order  was  not  the  first. 
I  deem  it  worth  while  to  record  a  curi- 
ous passage  in  one  of  the  very  few  talks 
I  had  with  Mr.  Fechter,  because  the 
quoted  words  will  furnish  a  good  illus- 
tration of  the  certainty  that  a  player  who 
is  using  a  foreign  language  will  make 
some  grievous  blunder  in  handling  a  clas- 
sic of  that  language,  in  spite  of  his  pains 
and  industry.  I  was  so  foolish  as  to  get 
into  an  argument  with  the  actor  concern- 
ing his  theory  of  Hamlet,  which  I  attacked 

[    126    ] 


CHARLES  FECHTER 


on   lines  already  indicated.    Mr.   Fechter  %^^  t^i-  0(.a^n 

defended  his  conception,  and  declared  that  ^  .^  ,/^  J^  ^ 

the  prince  did  not  procrastinate,  but  pur-  CL/-' 

sued    his    task    with    vigor.     Quotations  p 
flowed  freely,  and  I  was  about  to  clinch 

my  argument  by  citing  the  words  of  the  k 

Ghost  at  his  second  appearance  to  Ham-  "       "  •  ^^'^'^f 

let,  when  the  actor  interrupted  me.  6i^d^4miftW< 


<. 


"  Now,"  he  said,  "  what  can  you  answer        ^  ^^  "^^  ^^ 


to  this,  Mr.  Clapp  ?  Do  you  not  recall  ^/yK^<,; . ,  , . 
the  words  of  Hamlet's  father  in  the  queen's  (Ae/a/7/t/^  it^ 
closet,  '  I  come  to  Tuet  thy  almost  blunted    Jl/J'inriiJu) 


purpose:  ^ 


That  inquiry  ended   the  discussion.    It 
was  plain  that  Mr.  Fechter  had  never  dis-  j  -^-^ 

tinguished  "  whet"  from  "wet,"  and  that      ^^-^4*4^0^1^ 
he  had  no  notion  of  the  force  of"  blunted." 


His   idea  was  that  the    Ghost's   declared  ,      ., 

purpose  was  to  "wet"  down,  and  so  re-  ,     -'nCyA^i. 


duce,    the    excessive    flame    of    Hamlet's 

zeal.  UU^ . 

In  a  few  emphatic  words  I  wish  to  bear 
testimony  to  the  merits  of  Miss  Carlotta 

[    127    ] 


/i. 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


Leclercq,  who  supported  Mr.  Fechter,  and 
afterwards  went  on  a  starring  tour  in  this 
country,  playing  a  great  variety  of  parts, 
both  in  comedy  and  tragedy,  with  admira- 
ble intelligence,  vigor,  and  taste. 

Mr.  Fechter's  decline  was  melancholy. 
It  seemed  to  date  from  his  engagement 
as  leading  actor  and  general  manager  of 
the  Globe  Theatre,  of  which  Mr.  Arthur 
Cheney  was  proprietor.  In  the  autumn  of 
1870  Mr.  Fechter  entered  upon  this  part 
of  his  career.  Miss  Leclercq  accompanied 
him  as  leading  lady,  her  brother  Arthur 
being  stage  manager.  Mr.  James  W.  Wal- 
lack  was  engaged  as  second  leading  man. 
Monte  Cristo  was  brought  out  by  the  new 
corps,  successfully  and  with  much  splendor, 
on  the  14th  of  September,  and  ran  eight 
weeks.  Then  Mr.  Fechter  presented  many 
characters  in  his  repertory,  showing  a 
very  slight  falling  off  in  his  ability;  and 
the  public  appetite  for  his  product  dis- 
played  signs   of   abatement.    Next   came 

[    128    ] 


CHARLES   FECHTER 


internal  discords,  which  grew  chiefly  out 
of  Mr.  Fechter's  impetuous  temper  and 
his  inability  to  get  on  with  American  ac- 
tors and  employees.  With  scarcely  any 
warning  to  the  public,  a  rupture  took 
place,  and  on  the  14th  of  January,  1871, 
in  Ruy  Bias,  he  appeared  in  the  Globe 
Theatre  for  the  last  time.  During  several 
sequent  years,  after  one  return  to  England, 
he  acted  in  many  American  cities.  Gradu- 
ally his  powers  began  to  fail,  and  his  en- 
gagements were  made  with  second-class 
theatres.  It  was  pitiful  to  see  the  waning 
of  his  strength,  indicated  by  lapses  into 
rant,  and  by  the  development  of  slight 
mannerisms  into  gross  faults.  One  of  his 
clever  devices  had  been  the  use  of  brief 
pauses  for  effect;  now  the  pauses  were 
lengthened  out  till  they  became  ridiculous. 
It  is  probable  that  growing  physical  dis- 
ability accounted  for  this  decadence.  In 
1876  he  broke  his  leg,  and  retired  from 
the  stage  to  his  farm  in  Richmond,  Penn- 

[    129    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


sylvania,   where    he    died    on    the   5th   of 
August,  1879. 

I  have  known  only  one  other  case  of 
gradual  histrionic  disintegration  in  the 
early  life  of  a  player.  A  native  actress, 
who  attained  fame  in  her  youth,  and,  in 
spite  of  many  crudities  and  excesses  of 
style,  prevailed  through  frequent  flashes 
of  genius,  first  showed  the  subsidence  of 
her  power  by  the  steady  widening  of  her 
peculiar  extravagances;  then,  suddenly, 
all  vitality  disappeared  from  her  playing, 
which  became  a  mere  desiccated  husk, 
with  queer  contours,  rigid  and  fixed. 


[    130    ] 


XV 
Edwin  Booth 

THERE  is  no  occasion  for  me  to 
discuss  minutely  the  work  of  him 
whose  art  was  the  crown  of  our 
tragic  stage  during  nearly  all  the  second 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  —  of  Ed- 
win Booth,  claruni  et  venerabile  nomen. 
There  had  been  scarcely  a  break  in  the 
reign  of  his  dynasty  for  the  sevent3'-two 
years  between  1821,  when  the  wonderful 
Junius  Brutus  Booth,  Sr.,  began  to  act  in 
the  United  States,  and  1893,  when  the 
son,  Edwin,  after  a  life  strangely  mixed 
of  gloom  and  glory,  "  passed  to  where 
beyond  these  voices  there  is  peace."  The 
elder  tragedian  died  in  1852,  and  in  1852 
the  younger,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  in 
California,  was    playing  "general    utility 

[    131    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


business."  My  memory  holds  an  un- 
dimmed  picture  of  Edwin  Booth  as  I  first 
saw  him  at  the  Boston  Theatre,  in  Shake- 
spearean parts,  during  the  season  of 
1856-57,  when  he  was  twenty-three  years 
of  age,  —  beautiful  exceedingly  in  face  and 
form,  crude  with  the  promise-crammed 
crudity  of  youthful  genius,  and  already 
showing,  with  short  intermissions  and  ob- 
scurations, the  blaze  of  the  divine  fire. 
From  that  point  I  followed  him,  I  may 
say,  through  his  histrionic  course  until 
its  close,  as  hundreds  of  my  readers  fol- 
lowed him.  We  saw,  with  an  interest  and 
curiosity  always  keen  and  a  satisfaction 
seldom  marred,  his  gradual  growth  in  re- 
finement and  scholarship,  the  steady  deep- 
ening and  enriching  of  his  docile  and 
intuitive  spirit,  the  swift  experimental 
play  of  his  keen  intellect,  and  the  broad 
development  of  that  style  in  which  the 
academic  and  the  vital  were  so  finely 
fused. 


[    132    ] 


EDWIN   BOOTH 


A  famous  nomen  I  called  him  even  now. 
Alas  I  the  plain  truth  in  plain  English  is 
that  his  illustrious  name  and  fame  and  the 
tradition  of  his  art  are  all  that  is  left  to 
the  American  tragic  stage,  which  to-day 
is  trodden  only  by  the  spirits  of  departed 
actors,  of  whom  all  but  him  are  practically 
forgotten.  A  vacant  stage,  haunted  by 
ghosts,  visited  by  dying  winds  of  mem- 
ory! One  recalls  with  delight  the  purity 
of  his  enunciation,  the  elegant  correctness 
of  his  pronunciation,  the  exquisite  adjust- 
ment and  proportion  of  his  emphases,  his 
absolute  mastery  of  the  music  and  the 
meaning  of  Shakespeare's  verse;  and  then, 
one  may  note,  if  one  chooses,  that  the  art 
of  elocution,  as  he  practiced  it,  is  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  for  the  theatre  of 
1902,  a  lost  art. 

A  great  tragic  actor,  who  is  dealing 
with  material  such  as  that  which  is  fur- 
nished by  the  Great  Dramatist,  is  usually 
driven  by  an  imperious  impulse  to  try  ex- 

[    133    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


periments  with  his  text  and  to  vary  his 
histrionic  conceptions  as  he  advances  in 
years  and  knowledge,  and  as  his  temper- 
amental force  waxes  or  wanes.  Edwin 
Booth  furnished  a  signal  and  most  inter- 
esting example  of  the  effect  of  this  im- 
pulse, which  was  of  itself  a  proof  of  the 
unflagging  vitality  of  his  spirit.  With 
scholarly  eclecticism,  at  different  times 
he  made  choice  of  various  "readings," 
subjecting  them  to  the  test  of  stage  de- 
livery,—  often  the  best  alembic  in  which 
to  try  their  values,  —  and  with  innumera- 
ble diversities  of  vocal  shading,  ictus^  and 
cadence  sought  to  utter  the  Master  Poet's 
thought  with  new  delicacies  or  new  po- 
tencies. I  think  it  might  be  fairly  said 
that  his  theories  of  the  great  characters 
were  never  wrong  or  seriously  defective. 
And  through  his  shifting  ideals,  as  they 
were  embodied  from  year  to  year,  the 
spectator  could  discern  the  extraordinary 
variety  of  treatment  which  Shakespeare's 

[    134    ] 


EDWIN   BOOTH 


creations,    because    of    their    many-sided 
humanness,  will  permit. 

I  have  seen  him  play  Shylock,  some- 
times as  a  fierce  money-catching  old- 
clothes  dealer  of  Jewry;  sometimes  as  a 
majestic  Hebrew  financier  and  lawgiver; 
sometimes,  at  his  full  maturity,  in  what 
I  suppose  to  be  the  just  mean  between 
the  two  extremes :  and  the  Jew  was  terri- 
ble, vital,  convincing,  in  every  aspect.  I 
witnessed  the  advance  in  his  impersona- 
tion of  Richelieu,  whose  theatricalism  he 
succeeded  in  interpreting  in  terms  of  fiery 
sincerity,  until  the  cardinal  was  equally 
imposing  in  his  wrath  and  fascinating 
in  his  shrewdness  and  amiability.  The 
changes  in  his  conception  of  lago  were 
peculiarly  noteworthy,  the  movement  be- 
ing almost  steady  from  lightness  in  tint 
and  texture  to  darkness  and  weiorht.  His 
early  lago  was  a  gay,  jocund,  comfortable 
villain,  malicious  rather  than  malevolent, 
at  his  strongest  moments   suggesting  the 

[    135    ] 


A   DRAMATIC    CRITIC 


litheness  and  swiftness,  the  grace  and 
ominous  beauty,  of  a  leopard,  to  which, 
indeed,  in  attitude  and  action,  he  bore 
a  physical  resemblance.  His  last  lago 
showed  a  vast  deepening  and  broadening 
of  the  artist's  idea.  The  subtile  Venetian, 
still  as  persuasively  frank  in  speech  and 
manners,  as  facile  and  graceful,  as  before, 
now  threw  a  shadow  of  baleful  blackness 
as  he  walked,  was  Prince  of  the  Power  of 
the  Air  as  he  wove  and  cast  the  dread- 
ful "  net  that  shall  enmesh  them  all,"  and 
in  his  soliloquies  uttered  such  a  voice  of 
unquenchable  anguish  and  hate  as  might 
proceed  from  the  breast  of  Satan  himself. 
Mr.  Booth's  assumption  of  King  Lear 
I  put  at  the  head  of  all  his  performances. 
The  tragedian,  as  the  "  child-changed 
father,"  showed,  I  thought,  a  loftier  reach 
of  spirit,  a  wider  and  stronger  wing  of  im- 
agination, a  firmer  intellectual  grasp,  than 
he  displayed  elsewhere,  even  in  the  other 
great  assumptions  more  frequently  associ- 

[    136    ] 


EDWIN   BOOTH 


ated  with  his  name.  That  he  had  not  as 
magnificent  a  physical  basis  for  the  part 
as  Salvini  is  to  be  conceded;  but  Mr. 
Booth's  Lear  had  been  wrought  into  as 
pure  a  triumph  of  mind  and  soul  over 
matter  as  the  most  idealistic  critic  could 
wish  to  see.  Without  extravagance  of  ac- 
tion or  violence  of  voice,  without  extreme 
effort,  indeed,  of  any  sort,  the  chaotic 
vastness  of  Lear's  nature,  the  cruel  woe 
sustained  through  the  ingratitude  of  his 
daughters,  the  fullness  of  his  contrition 
over  his  own  follies  and  his  rejection  of 
Cordelia,  the  moral  splendors  which  illu- 
minate the  darkness  of  his  insanity,  and 
the  sweet  anguish  of  his  restoration  to 
clearness  of  mind  and  to  gentleness  of 
thought,  word,  and  deed,  —  all  these  were 
grandly  exhibited.  The  progress  of  mental 
decay  in  the  king  was  indicated  with  con- 
summate skill,  Booth's  interpretation  of 
the  whole  of  the  third  act  being  a  lesson 
to  the  profession  in  the  art  of  picturesque 

[    137    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


effectiveness  without  superelaboration. 
In  the  final  scenes  with  Cordelia  the  tra- 
gedian reached  his  highest  point.  Mr. 
Booth's  ability  in  pathos  was  unequal,  but 
in  these  passages  it  was  exquisite  and 
poignant,  the  dr3^ness  which  sometimes 
marred  his  efforts  in  this  kind  being  re- 
placed by  suavity  and  warmth,  like  those 
of  an  April  rain. 

Mr.  Booth's  limitations  were  obvious. 
He  had  little  success  in  straight  love-mak- 
ing:; in  some  few  seconds  of  his  dialoo^ues 
with  Ophelia,  the  passion  of  Hamlet's  love 
was  mixed  with  a  spiritual  pain  and  un- 
rest, which  somehow  heightened  every 
tenderness  of  action  and  utterance.  Like 
his  father,  and  all  his  father's  other  sons, 
he  had  small  gift  in  mirth.  It  was  there- 
fore of  interest  to  note  that  his  Petruchio, 
Benedick,  and  Don  Caisar  de  Bazan  were 
almost  sufficient,  by  virtue  of  his  vivacity, 
fire,  and  mental  alertness,  and,  in  the  case 
of   the    last   two    characters,  by  the  ele- 

[    138    ] 


EDWIN   BOOTH 


gance  and  distinction  of  his  manners  and 
speech. 

Through  his  Hamlet  Edwin  Booth  made, 
upon  the  whole,  his  deepest  and  surest 
impression.  In  his  performance  of  the 
part,  there  was  retained  to  the  last,  con- 
sciously and  deliberately,  more  of  the  old- 
fashioned  formality  and  precision  of  style 
than  he  permitted  himself  in  other  imper- 
sonations, and  the  effect  was  sometimes 
that  of  artifice.  But  Mr.  Booth  elected  to 
represent  Hamlet  in  a  style  far  less  fa- 
miliar and  far  more  remote  from  ordinary 
life  than  he  used  for  any  other  character 
in  his  large  repertory.  It  was  not  that  his 
Hamlet  was  all  in  one  key;  that  its  moods 
were  not  many  and  diverse ;  that  the  actor 
did  not  finely  discriminate  between  the 
son,  the  prince,  the  courtier,  the  friend, 
the  lover,  the  artist,  and  the  wit.  The  con- 
trary was  true.  It  was  as  full  of  delicate 
and  just  differences  as  one  could  wish. 
But,  through  its  prevailing  quality,  made 

[    139    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


constantly  prominent  by  the  tragedian's 
methods,  certain  definite  and  necessary 
results  were  reached.  Hamlet  differs  from 
Shakespeare's  other  tragic  heroes  both  in 
his  supernatural  experience  and  in  his 
unique  spiritual  constitution.  The  grim 
effects  of  jealousy  upon  Othello  and  of 
ambition  upon  Macbeth,  the  griefs  which 
work  their  torture  and  their  transforma- 
tion upon  King  Lear,  do  not  separate  these 
men  from  others  of  the  human  family,  — 
rather  ally  them  with  every  human  crea- 
ture. But  the  bark  of  Hamlet's  misfor- 
tunes is  borne  upon  a  current  whose  dark 
waters  flow  from  the  undiscovered  coun- 
try. Macbeth  questions  with  witches  and 
is  visited  by  ghosts,  but  at  every  step  his 
path  is  shown  to  be  of  his  own  making. 
To  Hamlet,  by  the  conditions  of  his  life 
and  his  soul,  is  given  the  largest  oppor- 
tunity for  choice,  and  the  smallest  power 
of  choosing.  Mr.  Booth,  with  careful  and 
scrupulous  art  and  full  success,  attempted 

[    140    ] 


EDWIN   BOOTH 


thus  to  distinguish  the  Prince  of  Denmark 
from  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  His  eyes, 
after  the  fourth  scene  of  the  first  act,  never 
lost  the  awful  light  which  had  filled  them 
as  they  looked  upon  his  father's  ghost;  his 
voice  never  quite  lost  the  tone  which  had 
vibrated  in  harmony  with  the  utterances 
of  that  august  spirit. 

After  all,  there  is  a  fine  fitness  in  that 
closeness  of  association  between  Edwin 
Booth  and  Hamlet  the  Dane,  which  is  to 
abide  as  long  as  the  man  and  his  art  and 
his  life  are  remembered.  In  his  largeness 
and  sweetness,  his  rare  delicacy  and  sensi- 
bility, he  was  nobly  human  to  the  core, 
after  the  pattern  of  the  most  human  of  all 
the  creations  of  the  Poet.  Like  the  mel- 
ancholy prince,  he  was  required  to  drink 
the  bitter  water  of  affliction,  and  to  hold  his 
peace  when  his  heart  was  almost  breaking  ; 
and,  in  its  extraordinary  depth  and  reserve, 
his  soul,  even  as  Hamlet's  and  as  Milton's, 
"  Was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart." 

C    HI    ] 


XVI 

TOMMASO    SaLVINI 

MIDWAY  of  the  quinquennium 
mirabile  to  which  most  of  my 
reminiscences  appear  to  be  re- 
lated, to  wit,  on  the  evening  of  Monday, 
November  24,  1873,  Tommaso  Salvini 
acted  for  the  first  time  in  Boston,  appear- 
ing at  the  Boston  Theatre  as  Samson,  in 
Ippolito  d'  Aste's  tragedy  of  that  name. 
During  his  early  engagements  in  America 
he  was  supported  by  a  company  who 
spoke  only  Italian.  Afterward,  beginning 
with  the  season  of  1880-81,  he  played  fre- 
quently in  this  country,  and  was  the  "star" 
of  troupes  otherwise  composed  of  English- 
speaking  actors.  This  bilingual  arrange- 
ment was  a  monstrosity,  and  nothing  short 
of  Salvini's  genius  could  have  made  the 

C    142    ] 


TOMMASO   SALVINI 


combination  tolerable.  During  the  season 
of  1882-83  Miss  Clara  Morris  was  his 
leading  lady;  in  other  years,  Miss  Pres- 
cott,  Miss  Wainright,  Mrs.  Bowers,  and 
other  reputable  performers  belonged  to  his 
supporting  companies.  In  the  spring  of 
1886  he  appeared  in  Othello  and  Hamlet 
with  Edwin  Booth,  who  played  lago  and 
Hamlet  to  Salvini's  Othello  and  the  Ghost. 
For  many  of  the  most  finely  discrim- 
inating connoisseurs  of  acting,  in  this 
region,  Salvini  became  the  first  and  fore- 
most of  the  histrionic  artists  of  our  day, 
and  with  nearly  all  "  the  judicious "  he 
took,  held,  and  holds  a  highly  exalted 
position.  His  personality  was  the  most 
splendid  —  the  adjective  is  fit,  and,  indeed, 
required  —  that  has  illustrated  the  theatre 
of  his  time.  When  he  was  first  seen  here, 
the  beauty  and  strength  of  his  classic 
face,  the  grand  proportions  of  his  figure, 
and  the  vibrant,  sympathetic  sweetness  of 
his  voice  —  a  voice  as  glorious  as  ever  pro- 

[    143    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


ceeded  from  a  man  —  combined  to  over- 
power the  observer  and  listener.  As  was 
said  of  Edmund  Kean,  "  he  dominated 
stage  and  audience  completely."  His  train- 
ing in  the  Continental  School  had  been 
thorough,  and,  in  temperamental  force,  I 
doubt  if  he  was  surpassed  by  any  player 
at  any  period  of  the  world.  His  acting 
was  of  the  Latin  order,  not  of  the  Teu- 
tonic or  Anglo-Teutonic;  it  was,  however, 
though  always  vital  and  strong,  never  ex- 
travagant; in  gesture,  though  exuberant,  it 
was  not  excessive;  in  its  general  method, 
it  belonged  to  what,  in  choice  from  a 
poverty  of  terms,  must  be  called  the  ex- 
haustive rather  than  the  suggestive  school 
of  art;  there  was  in  it  not  so  high  a  solution 
of  pure  intellectuality  as  in  Edwin  Booth's, 
but  in  its  mastery,  in  the  largest  way  and 
to  the  smallest  detail,  of  the  symbols  of 
histrionic  expression,  it  ranked,  I  think, 
above  that  of  every  other  player  whom 
the  stage  of  America  has  known  within 

[    H4    ] 


TOMMASO   SALVINI 


the  past  fifty  years.  Salvini  was  Charles 
Fechter  carried  up  to  the  second  power  of 
all  the  Frenchman's  virtues,  with  scarcely 
a  hint  of  his  limitations. 

The  Othello  of  Salvini  was  the  assump- 
tion through  which  he  most  strongly  im- 
pressed the  public,  by  which  he  will  be 
inost  widely  remembered.  Fully  conscious 
of  its  magnificence  and  of  the  unequaled 
and  terrible  force  of  its  passion,  which  in 
the  third  scene  of  the  third  act  represents, 
perhaps,  the  highest  conceivable  stress  of 
which  humanity  is  capable,  I  personally 
preferred  to  it  several  of  his  other  imper- 
sonations. It  seemed  to  me  that  his  Othello 
was  Shakespeare  orientalized  and  super- 
sensualized,  at  the  cost  of  some  of  the 
Master's  heroic  conception,  and  of  much 
of  the  Poet's  beautiful  thought.  Salvini 
knew  that  Othello  was  a  Moor,  and  a 
Moor  he  would  have  him  in  body,  soul, 
and  spirit;  not  such  a  Moor  as  he  might 
have  discovered  from  the  wondrous  text, 

[    H5    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


but  a  tawny  barbarian,  exuberant  with 
the  quahties  conventionally  assigned  to 
the  race.  His  gloating  over  Desdemona 
ill  became  the  lines  which  displayed  the 
depth  and  chastity  of  the  hero's  love,  and 
in  the  fierce  savagery  of  his  jealous  rage, 
during  the  last  half  of  the  play,  the  imagi- 
native grace  and  beauty  of  many  passages 
were  smothered  and  lost.  In  the  murder 
of  Desdemona,  done  with  realistic  hor- 
rors, and  in  Othello's  suicide,  effected,  not 
with  indicated  dagger,  but  with  a  crooked 
scimiter  and  hideous  particulars  of  gasp, 
choke,  and  gurgle,  I  perceived  that  both 
the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  Shakespeare 
were  defied  and  defeated  for  sensational 
purposes. 

But  thirty  years  ago  criticism  of  this 
sort  fell,  as  now  perhaps  it  falls,  upon  few 
ears  that  would  hear;  one  of  my  friends 
said  that  such  carping  was  like  girding  at 
Niagara.  Salvini's  Othello  was  undoubt- 
edly stupendous  and  monumental.    Leav- 

[    H6    ] 


TOMMASO   SALVINI 


ing  Shakespeare  and  Anglo-Saxon  scruple 
out  of  account,  it  was  great;  considered 
by  itself,  it  was  homogeneous  and  self-con- 
sistent, —  "  one  entire  and  perfect  chryso- 
lite," or,  with  a  suitable  variation  of  the 
Moor's  own  phrase,  one  huge  ardent  car- 
buncle. 

In  witnessing  the  Italian  dramas  which 
Salvini  produced,  the  spectators  did  not 
need  to  be  troubled  with  Shakespearean 
doubts  and  qualms.  His  Samson,  which 
he  played  on  his  opening  night  in  this 
city,  seemed  to  me  a  supreme  histrionic 
expression  of  the  emotional-picturesque. 
The  play,  which  was  in  verse,  freely  dram- 
atized the  Biblical  story  of  the  Lion  of 
Dan,  had  considerable  merit,  and  was  quite 
redeemed  from  commonplace  by  the  char- 
acter of  its  hero.  In  Samson's  mighty 
personality  two  individualities  were  fused: 
the  giant,  the  man  of  blood,  the  slave  of 
passion,  was  also  the  son  of  promise,  the 
just  judge,  and,  above  all,  the  appointed 

C    147  J 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


deliverer  of  God's  people  Israel.  It  was 
wonderful  to  see  how  Salvini's  impersona- 
tion combined  these  two  natures;  express- 
ing with  sensuous  fullness  all  that  was 
gross  and  earthy  in  the  man,  and  not  less 
effectually  displaying  the  lofty  conscious- 
ness of  the  leader  and  commissioned  ser- 
vant of  the  Lord  Jehovah.  When  directly 
under  the  divine  inspiration,  as  in  the 
second  act  of  the  play,  when  he  perceived 
in  the  flames  that  consumed  his  house  the 
presence  of  the  I  AM  whom  Moses  knew 
in  the  burning  bush  on  Horeb,  the  face  and 
speech  of  the  actor  became  glorious  and 
awful  in  their  consciousness  of  Divinity; 
and  at  lower  moments,  sometimes  in  the 
midst  of  unholy  and  degrading  pleasures, 
a  strange  and  m3^stical  light  seemed  to  fill 
his  eyes,  to  touch  and  amplify  his  form. 
In  his  fatal  drunkenness  there  was  some- 
thing godlike  as  well  as  pathetic,  even  while 
the  details  of  intoxication  were  shown 
with  remorseless   truthfulness,  —  touches 

[    148    ] 


TOMMASO   SALVINI 


of  rare  delicacy  being  made  in  the  facial 
action  accompanying  the  first  draught  of 
the  "  wine  of  Sorec,"  where  the  repulsion 
of  the  Nazarite  for  the  forbidden  cup  was 
merged  in  his  presentiment  of  coming  ill. 
His  declamation  of  Jacob's  blessing  of 
the  tribe  of  Dan  was  like  the  tramp  of  a 
jubilant  host.  The  long  speech,  in  which 
he  rehearsed  in  detail,  with  appropriate 
action,  the  story  of  his  victory  over  the 
young  lion  that  roared  at  him  in  the  vine- 
yards of  Timnath,  afforded  by  far  the 
most  signal  illustration  I  have  ever  seen 
of  the  ability  of  an  actor  to  reproduce  in 
narrative  a  series  of  varied  incidents.  The 
performance  had  the  effect  of  a  set  of  bio- 
graph  pictures,  with  the  added  vividnesses 
of  ear-filling  sound,  and,  somehow,  of  ap- 
parent color.  Another  almost  equally  re- 
markable and  even  more  stirring  triumph 
in  a  similar  sort  was  Salvini's  narrative, 
in  La  Morte  Civile,  of  Conrad's  escape 
from  prison.   No  other  actor  of  our  day 

[    149    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


was  capable  of  either  achievement.  In 
the  Biblical  play  his  highest  point  was  at- 
tained in  the  fourth  act,  when  he  discov- 
ered the  loss  of  his  hair  and  his  strength; 
and  here  his  cry  of  agony  and  his  frenzied, 
vaguely  grasping  gesture,  accompanying 
the  words,  "  Gran  Dio !  La  chioma  mia ! 
la  chioma!"  were  indescribably  thrilling 
and  awful.  His  Samson  was  in  its  differ- 
ent aspects  as  closely  human  as  the  Ajax 
of  Sophocles,  as  heroic  and  unhappy  as 
CEdipus,  as  remote  as  the  Prometheus  of 
yEschylus. 

Salvini's  skill  was  as  high  in  comedy 
as  in  tragedy.  His  impersonation  of  Sul- 
livan, in  the  Italian  play  of  which  David 
Garrick  is  a  replica,  was  ideally  perfect, 
even  surpassing  Mr.  Sothern's  perform- 
ance in  grace,  vivacity,  and  distinction. 
He  played  Ingomar  occasionally,  in  the 
Baron  Munsch-Bcllinghauscn's  drama  of 
that  name,  and  filled  the  part  to  overflow- 
ing with  humor  and  virile  gentleness.    His 


[    150    ] 


TOMMASO   SALVINI 


interpretation  of  King  Lear  was  of  great 
merit,  though  some  of  the  subtleties  of  the 
text  did  not  reach  him  through  the  Italian 
version.  His  Hamlet  was  quite  unsatis- 
factory to  American  audiences,  and  was 
seldom  given  in  this  country;  but  his  per- 
formance of  the  Ghost  far  surpassed  every 
other  that  our  stage  has  known. 

Without  dealing  with  his  other  admira- 
ble assumptions,  I  wish  to  put  myself  on 
record  for  an  opinion  which  is  shared  by 
hundreds  of  my  fellow  citizens.  Salvini's 
impersonation  of  Conrad,  the  central  per- 
sonage of  La  Morte  Civile  of  Paolo  Gia- 
commetti,  has  not  been  rivaled,  has  not 
been  approached,  by  any  dramatic  pur- 
formance  of  our  time,  in  respect  of  pure 
and  heart-searching  pathos.  The  story  is 
that  of  an  Italian  artist,  Conrad,  who,  con- 
demned to  imprisonment  for  life  for  the 
commission  of  a  crime  of  unpremeditated 
violence,  after  many  years  of  confinement 
escapes  from  jail,  finds  his  wife  and  daugh- 

[    151    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


ter,  both  of  whom  had  been  saved  from 
want  by  a  kind  and  honorable  physician, 
and  learns  that  his  daughter,  now  almost 
grown  to  womanhood,  has  received  the 
name  of  her  protector,  and  been  brought 
up  in  the  belief  that  the  physician  is  her 
father.  Though  strongly  drawn  by  natu- 
ral instinct  to  make  himself  known  to  the 
girl,  Conrad  is  persuaded,  through  a  desire 
for  his  child's  happiness  and  peace  of  mind, 
to  conceal  his  relation  to  her;  the  supreme 
effort  required  for  this  sacrifice  completes 
the  work  of  his  many  sufferings  and  pri- 
vations, and  in  it  he  dies.  The  character 
of  Conrad  is  built  upon  a  large  plan.  He 
is  naturally  a  man  of  violent  passions, 
capable  of  furious  jealousy,  easily  wrought 
to  suspicion,  and  by  years  of  solitude  and 
misery  has  been  made  sullen  and  morose. 
Yet  the  spirit  within  him  is  really  great, 
and,  possessed  by  the  passion  of  paternal 
love,  rises  to  such  deeds  and  self-denials 
as    might   be    sung  by  choirs   of   angels. 

[    152    ] 


TOMMASO   SALVINI 


Every  phase  of  the  man's  nature  was  pre- 
sented by  the  actor  with  fine  discrimina- 
tion and  full  potency.  But  as  the  fiery 
soul  was  brought  to  its  great  trial,  and 
prepared  itself  for  the  renunciation  of  its 
one  hope  and  joy,  the  player's  art  took  on 
an  entrancing  loveliness.  From  scene  to 
scene  Conrad's  face  was  gradually  trans- 
formed, its  grim  severity  being  replaced 
by  a  sober  earnestness.  The  passage  with 
his  wife,  in  which  they  were  united  in 
their  spirit  of  self-abnegation,  where  dis- 
appointment, desire,  and  grief  swelled  his 
heart  almost  to  bursting,  was  deeply  im- 
pressive, but  served  principally  to  lead 
the  mind  of  the  spectator  to  the  last  scene 
of  all.  What  words  can  do  justice  to 
that,  —  to  the  exquisite  pathos  of  his  final 
interview  with  his  daughter,  when,  strug- 
gling with  the  agony  of  imminent  death, 
he  endeavored,  by  caressing  tones  and 
timid  gestures  of  tenderness,  to  excite  an 
answering  throb  in  the  young  breast,  which 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


he  would  not  press  against  his  own,  and, 
having  borne  the  extremity  of  anguish 
and  shame  in  her  discovery  upon  his  wrists 
of  the  flesh  marks  that  told  the  disgrace 
of  his  captivity,  found  one  moment  of 
happiness  in  the  offer  of  her  childish 
prayers  in  his  behalf  ?  The  pain  depicted 
was  so  awful,  the  heart  hunger  so  terrible, 
that  the  sight  of  them  could  not  have 
been  endured  but  for  the  glory  and  gran- 
deur of  the  act  of  self-immolation.  At 
the  very  last,  the  yearning  in  his  hollow 
eyes  as  they  glazed  in  death  was  almost 
insupportable,  and  was,  indeed,  so  pitiful 
that  the  dread  realism  of  the  final  moment, 
when  the  strong  soul  parted  from  the 
weary  body,  was  felt  as  a  relief.  At  the 
first  performance  of  this  play  in  Boston, 
I  had  the  never  paralleled  experience  of 
being  one  of  a  company  of  spectators 
whose  emotion  was  manifested  by  audible 
gasping  for  breath,  by  convulsive  choking 


[    154    ] 


TOMMASO   SALVINI 


and  sobbing;  strong  men  being  specially 
affected. 

I  must  not  lose  the  opportunity  to  de- 
clare the  deep  impression  which  was  made 
upon  me  at  this  time  by  the  acting  of 
Signora  Piamonti,  who  was  the  tragedian's 
leading  lady  during  his  first  season  in 
America.  In  none  of  the  impersonations 
which  she  presented  was  the  highest  force 
required  of  her,  and  therefore  I  am  not  jus- 
tified in  pronouncing  her  the  equal  of  Ris- 
tori  or  Bernhardt  or  Seebach.  But  in  the 
large  variety  of  her  performances,  which 
ranged  from  Ophelia  in  Hamlet  to  Zelia 
in  Sullivan,  —  corresponding  to  Ada  In- 
got in  David  Garrick,  —  Signora  Piamonti 
exhibited  such  grace,  adresse,  dramatic 
judgment,  and  vivid  delicacy  of  style  as 
the  world  expects  only  from  players  of 
the  first  rank.  Her  Ophelia  was  the  most 
beautiful  and  poetic  assumption  of  the 
character  that  I  have  witnessed,  surpassing 


[    ^SS    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


by  a  little  even  Miss  Terry's  fine  perform- 
ance; and  the  achievement  was  especially 
remarkable  because  the  Italian  artist  could 
not  sing,  and  was  obliged  to  interpret 
Ophelia's  ballads  in  a  kind  of  dry  chant,  or 
monotone,  with  occasional  cadences.  Bet- 
ter than  any  one  of  all  the  other  players  I 
have  seen,  many  of  whom  well  expressed 
the  Dramatist's  idea,  Signora  Piamonti 
made  Ophelia's  insanity  lovely  as  well  as 
pathetic,  turning  "thought  and  affliction, 
passion,  hell  itself,  to  favor  and  to  pret- 
tiness,"  according  to  the  word  of  the  Poet. 
Her  Desdemona  was  charming  in  its 
unaffected  sweetness,  and  in  its  final  pas- 
sages indicated,  with  true  tragic  stress,  the 
heroic  loyalty  of  the  wife,  while  preserving 
the  feminine  softness  of  the  gentle  Vene- 
tian. A  striking  contrast,  whereby  the 
breadth  of  her  art  appeared,  was  afforded 
by  her  impersonations  of  Delilah  in  Sam- 
son and  Zelia  in  Sullivan.  The  latter  was 
shown   as  a  young  girl   of  modern   type, 

[    ^56    ] 


TOMMASO   SALVINI 


fresh  and  unconventional,  but  of  a  charac- 
ter strongly  based  in  purity,  intelligence, 
and  refined  sensibility,  —  an  ideal  daugh- 
ter of  England,  emotional,  yet  dignified 
and  self-contained;  the  anxious,  restless 
attention,  crossed  by  shame  and  disgust, 
with  which  she  watched  the  actor  in  the 
early  moments  of  his  pretended  intoxica- 
tion was  a  triumph  of  the  eloquence  of 
attitude  and  facial  expression,  interestingly 
followed  by  the  voluble  passion  of  her 
oral  appeal  to  his  nobler  soul.  Signora 
Piamonti's  Delilah,  though  kept  at  every 
moment  entirely  within  the  lines  prescribed 
by  good  taste  and  propriety,  exhibited 
Samson's  mistress  and  destroyer  like  some 
flaming  flower  of  the  voluptuous  East,  in- 
carnadined in  tint,  heavy  with  aromatic 
odors,  intoxicating  to  the  sense  of  man,  — 
the  hireling  slave  of  passion,  yet  almost 
redeemed  at  the  last  by  the  violent  access 
of  her  remorse  and  self-loathing.  Her 
final  rejection   of  the   Philistines'  reward 

[    157    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


of  her  perfidy  was  so  mixed  of  rage  and 
shame  as  to  seem  strong  even  against  the 
background  of  Salvini's  tremendous  per- 
formance. 


[    158   ] 


XVII 
Adelaide  Neilson 

NO  player  in  my  time  vied  with 
Adelaide  Neilson  in  respect  of 
the  keenness  of  the  curiosity  and 
the  profuseness  of  the  admiration  of  which 
she  was  the  object.  Both  curiosity  and 
admiration  were  justified.  As  a  woman 
and  as  an  artist  she  was  difficult  to  ac- 
count for.  I  do  not  pretend  to  know  the 
truth  about  those  portions  of  her  life  which 
have  a  dubious  aspect.  After  she  came 
to  the  fullness  of  her  power  the  voice  of 
disparaging  gossip  grew  faint,  as  if  there 
could  be  but  one  verdict,  and  that  of  ap- 
proval, upon  a  personality  which  appeared 
so  refined  in  every  public  manifestation. 
It  is  known  that  her  baptismal  name  was 
Elizabeth  Ann  Brown;  that  she  was  born 

[    159    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


in  Leeds,  March  3,  1848,  and  was  the 
daughter  of  an  actress  of  no  great  ability. 
As  a  young  girl,  she  had  employment  in 
a  mill,  as  a  nurserymaid,  as  a  barmaid, 
and  as  a  member  of  a  theatrical  corps 
de  ballet  ;  having  been  befriended,  at  the 
beginning  of  her  career  on  the  stage,  by 
Captain,  afterward  Admiral,  Henry  Carr 
Glyn,  a  noted  officer  of  the  British  navy. 
Through  all  the  occupations  just  now 
mentioned  she  must  have  passed  before 
she  was  eighteen  years  of  age,  since  her 
debut  as  Juliet  was  made  at  Margate  in 
1865.  Her  success  was  immediate,  and 
her  repertory  soon  embraced  many  parts 
in  Shakespearean  and  other  dramas.  She 
made  her  first  appearances  in  America 
and  in  Boston  during  the  autumn  and  win- 
ter of  1872-73;  and  afterward,  in  a  nearly 
unbroken  succession  of  seasons,  she  acted 
in  most  of  the  chief  cities  of  this  country, 
until  the  winter  of  1879-80.  On  the  15th 
of  August,   1880,  after   many  months    of 

[    160    ] 


ADELAIDE   NEILSON 


failing  health,  she  died  suddenly  at  the 
Chalet  du  Rond  Royal,  in  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne.  A  considerable  portion  of  her 
estate  she  bequeathed  by  will  to  Admiral 
Glyn.  She  acted  frequently  in  England, 
also,  during  the  last  eight  years  of  her 
life,  appearing,  in  the  course  of  one  mem- 
orable engagement,  in  one  hundred  con- 
secutive performances  of  Julia,  in  The 
Hunchback  of  Sheridan  Knowles. 

When  Miss  Neilson,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
four,  first  pla3''ed  in  this  city,  her  beauty 
and  charm  were  on  all  sides  declared  to 
be  of  a  rare  and  bewildering  sort,  and  the 
public  acclaim  upon  that  theme  was  loud 
and  sonorous.  Her  great  ability,  also,  was 
obvious.  It  was  easy  to  see  that  "  the  root 
of  the  matter  "  was  in  her  ;  that  she  pos- 
sessed the  true  plastic  quality  of  the  actor, 
native  histrionic  discrimination,  and  ex- 
treme temperamental  sensibility.  But  her 
style,  at  that  time,  lacked  the  highest  dis- 
tinction •  her  voice,  though  usually  very 

[    i6i    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


pleasant  in  quality,  had  many  unrefined 
nasal  intonations;  and  in  the  interpretation 
of  her  text  she  frequently  missed  delicate 
opportunities,  sometimes  squarely  blun- 
dered. It  happened  that  she  did  not  re- 
appear in  Boston  till  1880,  and  connois- 
seurs of  acting  were  then  permitted  to 
note  the  effect  upon  her  of  seven  3'ears  of 
the  experience  and  culture  of  the  stage. 
The  change  was  remarkable :  she  had 
gained  greatly  in  vivacity  and  power,  al- 
most equally  in  breadth  and  suavity  of 
style.  Her  voice  had  acquired  an  absolute 
clarity,  with  no  loss  of  richness  of  tones. 
An  extraordinary  advance  had  been  made 
in  the  finish  of  her  work,  which  now  exhib- 
ited, at  almost  every  point  and  in  almost 
every  detail,  an  exquisite  precision  that 
testified  to  the  operation  of  a  clear  and 
highly  cultivated  intelligence. 

The  evening  of  February  16, 1880,  when, 
after  the  long  absence  referred  to,  she  was 
once  more  seen  in  Boston,  was  an  evening 

[    ^62    ] 


ADELAIDE   NEILSON 


to  be  much  remembered  by  every  star- 
long-suffering  critic.  At  last  a  Juliet  had 
appeared  whose  st}^le  was  as  large  as  it 
was  passionate  and  sweet,  —  a  Juliet  who 
did  not  color  the  words  "Art  thou  not 
Romeo  and  a  Montague  ?  "  with  hostilit}^, 
sincere  or  affected;  who  did  not  fall  into  a 
twenty  seconds'  ecstasy  of  terror  because 
the  orchard  walls  were  high  and  hard  to 
climb,  and  the  place  death  to  Romeo,  con- 
sidering who  he  was,  if  any  of  her  kinsmen 
found  him  under  her  window;  who  did  not 
get  out  of  temper  with  her  nurse,  and  emit 
her  "  By  and  by  I  come  "  like  a  blow  from 
an  angry  fist;  who  did  not  rush  on  from 
"Dost  thou  love  me  ?  "  to  "I  know  thou  wilt 
say  a}',"  as  if  she  were  mortally  afraid  that 
Romeo  would  say  no,  and  proposed  to  stop 
his  tongue  in  time;  who  did  not  exhibit 
all  the  symptoms  of  a  blue  funk  of  terror 
while  the  friar  was  describing  the  conse- 
quences of  her  drinking  his  potion.  These 
betises,  and  many  others  like  unto  them, 

[    163    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


some  practiced  for  effect,  some  mere  pro- 
ducts of  misunderstanding,  we  had  endured 
at  the  hands  and  lips  of  many  noted  ac- 
tresses. A  large  style  here,  suited  to  Shake- 
speare's large  scheme !  A  style,  that  is  to 
say,  which  takes  into  account,  at  every 
moment,  not  only  the  text  by  itself,  but  the 
text  as  it  is  related  to  all  the  other  texts, 
and  to  the  Juliet  revealed  by  them  in  her 
many  aspects  and  in  her  total  definite  per- 
sonality. Not  a  studied,  self-conscious 
Juliet,  not  a  Juliet  adorned  with  foreign 
excrescences,  not  a  babyish,  lachrymosal 
Juliet,  but  Shakespeare's  own  true  love- 
taught  heroine.  Illustrations  of  her  strong 
judgment,  and  of  its  cooperation  with  her 
delicate  intuition,  might  be  indefinitely 
multiplied:  I  cite  only  one  other,  which 
relates  to  a  passage  that  crucially  tests 
both  the  fineness  and  the  strength  of  an 
actress's  artist  eyesight. 

In  the  first  act  of  As  You  Like  It,  Miss 
Neilson's  treatment  of  Rosalind's  conclud- 


C    164   ] 


ADELAIDE   NEILSON 


ing  interview  with  Orlando  was  ideally 
expressive:  the  words,  "Sir,  you  have 
wrestled  well,  and  overthrown  more  than 
your  enemies,"  were  made  to  carry  just 
as  far  as  they  ought,  and  no  farther, — 
winging  their  message  of  incipient  love 
to  the  young  man's  faithful  ear,  bravely, 
modestly,  gravely,  without  smile  or  sim- 
per, it  might  fairly  be  said  without  a  hint 
of  coquetr3\ 

It  happened  that  Miss  Neilson  played  at 
no  time  in  Boston  any  other  than  Shake- 
spearean characters,  confining  herself,  dur- 
ing her  early  engagement,  to  Rosalind  and 
Juliet.  At  her  season  here  in  February, 
1880,  she  added  to  her  record  with  imper- 
sonations of  Viola  and  Imogen,  presenting 
Cymbeline  on  the  23d  of  that  month,  for 
the  first  time  here  within  twenty-four  years. 
She  returned  to  Boston  for  one  week,  two 
months  later  in  the  same  year,  and  on  the 
night  of  the  19th  of  April  appeared  as 
Isabella,  in  Measure  for  Measure,  which 

[    165    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


until  then  had  not  been  performed  in  this 
city.  Her  impersonation  of  Imogen  was 
masterly,  the  adjective  befitting  an  inter- 
pretation whose  gamut  ran  from  high  pas- 
sionate force  to  the  most  delicate  sensi- 
bility. In  her  interview  with  lachimo  she 
showed  admirable  judgment  ;  not  falling 
into  a  frenzy  at  the  disclosure  of  his  base- 
ness, but,  in  her  repulse  of  the  libertine, 
combining  courage,  scorn,  and  loathing,  in 
a  grand  demonstration  of  womanhood  and 
wifehood.  Her  loftiest  point  was  reached 
in  the  scene  with  Pisanio,  wherein  she 
learned  of  her  husband's  mad  disbelief  and 
murderous  purpose.  Here,  at  first,  a  hun- 
dred shades  of  fond  hope,  of  anxiety  and 
alarm,  were  depicted  in  her  face;  and  when 
the  blow  fell  from  the  letter  of  Posthumus, 
and  she  dropped  to  the  earth  as  if  she  had 
been  shot,  her  passion  of  grief  seemed  to 
pass  beyond  simulation,  and  in  the  speech 
beginning,  — 


[    166    ] 


ADELAIDE   NEILSON 


"  False  to  his  bed  !    What  is  it  to  be  false? 
To  lie  in  watch  there  and  to  think  on  him  ? 
To  weep  twixt  clock  and  clock  ? " 

honest  indignation,  outraged  affection,  and 
anguish  were  uttered,  without  a  touch  of 
rant  or  self-consciousness,  in  a  cry  that 
pierced  the  heavens  and  the  listener's  heart. 
The  feminine  sweetness  and  physical  del- 
icacy of  Imogen  were  shown  with  true 
poetic  grace;  and  among  all  the  lovely 
images  that  the  stage  has  shown,  none  is, 
I  think,  so  appealingly  lovely  as  that  of 
Miss  Neilson's  Imogen  as,  emerging  from 
her  brothers'  cave,  she  made  her  trem- 
bling declaration  of  hunger  and  honesty 
and  her  meek  yet  clear-voiced  plea  to  the 
gentleness  of  the  stout  strangers. 

I  must  not  multiply  details,  especially  as 
a  difficult  and  more  important  attribution 
is  to  be  attempted.  More  than  once  I  have 
spoken  of  Miss  Neilson's  beauty,  and  of 
the  general  enthusiasm  over  that  theme. 
In  truth,  her  face  was  not  distinguished  by 

[    167    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


the  regularity  which  the  sculptor  approves. 
Her  forehead  was  broad  and  full;  her  eyes 
were  softly  brilliant,  and  their  gray  shifted 
into  every  appropriate  color;  her  mouth, 
both  firm  and  sensitive,  had  not  the  out- 
line of  the  conventional  Cupid's  bow;  her 
chin  was  pointed,  and  protruded  a  little 
from  the  profile  line.  In  the  one  interview 
I  had  with  her,  she  compared  herself  with 
a  notoriously  handsome  English  actress, 
concluding,  with  a  frank  laugh,  "  But  / 
have  n't  2.  featchur,  I  know."  Yet  on  the 
stage  her  beauty  irradiated  the  scene.  The 
explanation  is  easy.  She  had  a  counte- 
nance over  which  the  mind  and  spirit  had 
absolute  control,  in  and  through  whose 
plastic  material  they  uttered  themselves 
without  let  or  hindrance,  making  it  their 
exponent  rather  than  their  veil,  as  if,  by  a 
mystical  operation  of  the  physical  law,  the 
force  of  the  soul  were  transmuted  into  terms 
of  flesh.  These  words,  which  sound  ex- 
travagant, are  simply  true.     One  does  not 

[    168   ] 


ADELAIDE   NEILSON 


remember  the  beautiful  Adelaide  Neilson 
in  propria  persona :  the  figures  and  faces 
which  are  associated  with  her  are  those  of 
Shakespeare's  heroines,  every  one  of  them 
unlike  every  other,  every  one  immortally 
beautiful.  I  suspect  that,  as  a  histrionic 
artist,  she  excelled  not  so  much  through 
swift  impulses  and  inspirations  as  through 
her  supreme  docility,  discretion,  and  re- 
sponsiveness. She  was  always  studying, 
evolving,  and  considering  fresh  ideas,  elim- 
inating old  faults,  taking  on  new  excel- 
lences. She  afforded  in  her  person  a  rare 
example  of  artistic  and  mental  develop- 
ment; and  I  have  ventured  to  go  so  far  in 
my  thought — now  confided  to  the  reader 
—  as  to  believe  that  of  her  intimacy  with 
the  pure  and  lovely  conceptions  of  the 
Poet  whom  she  sincerely  reverenced  she 
was  making  a  ladder  upon  which  her  soul 
was  mounting  and  to  mount. 

It  remains  to  be  said  that,  perhaps  not 
for  all,  but  certainly  for  very  many  persons, 

[    169    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


Miss  Neilson  as  an  actress  possessed  an 
ineffable  charm,  which  has  never  been 
analyzed  or  explained.  A  signal  illustration 
of  this  charm  was  afforded  by  her  Viola, 
in  Twelfth  Night.  Of  all  Shakespeare's 
women,  Viola  is  the  most  elusive.  Deeply 
reserved,  void  of  initiative,  confirmed  in 
patience,  exquisitely  fine  in  all  the  tex- 
ture of  her  nature,  as  pure  as  new-fallen 
snow,  she  is,  however,  not  like  Miranda, 
fearless  with  the  ignorant  innocence  of 
Paradise,  or  Isabella,  calm  with  the  un- 
tempted  chastity  of  the  cloister,  but  is 
familiar  with  life  and  its  lures,  as  well  as 
susceptible  of  love  and  its  enthrallment. 
Yet  she  passes  through  uncounted  com- 
promising situations  without  a  smirch,  and 
in  her  masculine  attire  is  no  less  virginal- 
sweet  than  in  her  woman's  weeds.  Miss 
Neilson's  performance  said  all  this,  and 
the  much  more  there  is  to  say,  with  an  art 
that  was  be3'ond  criticism;  keeping  the 
character  well  in  the  shadow  to  which  it 


[    170    ] 


ADELAIDE   NEILSON 


belongs,  and  at  the  point  of  highest  tension, 
with  a  hundred  deft  touches,  conveying 
the  strength  of  the  tender  passion  which 
could  endure  and  smile  at  grief.  But,  aside 
from  the  distinction  and  charm,  the  sub- 
tilty  and  the  depth,  of  the  impersonation* 
aside,  even,  from  the  completeness  with 
which  the  personality  of  the  artist  was  trans- 
formed into  that  of  Shakespeare's  heroine, 
there  was  a  quality  in  the  performance  by 
which  it  was  related  to  some  evanescent 
ideal  of  perfect  beauty,  to  some  vision  of 
supernal  loveliness  vaguely  apprehended 
but  eagerly  desired,  through  which  it 
touched  the  infinite.  Other  of  Miss  Neil- 
son's  assumptions  had  a  like  power;  but 
the  manifestation  through  this  character 
was  singularly  clear.  More  than  once  I 
saw  scores  of  mature  men  and  women 
gazing  through  eyes  filled  with  sudden- 
surprising  moisture  at  this  slip  of  a  girl, 
as  she  stood  upon  the  wreck-strewn  shore 
of  the   sea,   in  the   midst   of   sailors,  and 

[    171    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


began  a  dialogue  no  more  important  than 
this  :  — 

"  Vio.   What  country,  friends,  is  this  ? 
Cap.    This  is  Illyria,  lady. 
Vio.    And  what  should  I  do  in  Illyria  ? 
My  brother  he  is  in  Elysium. 

Perchance   he    is   not  drowned :  what  think  you, 
sailors  ? " 

In  that  slender  maid,  as  she  looked 
through  Adelaide  Neilson's  eyes  and  spoke 
through  her  voice,  the  fairest  dream  of 
romance  seemed  incarnate  ;  in  her  the 
very  "  riches  of  the  sea,"  strangely  deliv- 
ered from  its  "  enraged  and  foamy  mouth," 
had  "  come  on  shore." 


[    172    ] 


XVIII 

Memorable  Experiences  of  Single 
Plays  and  Artists 


A 


PPROACHING  the  end  of  these 
reminiscent  sketches,  the  scenes 
of  which  must  not  be  brought  too 
near  the  foreground  in  time,  I  purpose  to 
note  several  disconnected  and  contrasting 
experiences  of  stage  and  platform,  which 
stand  out  in  my  memory  by  reason  of 
some  salient  peculiarity.  The  moments  of 
highest  exaltation,  among  many  lofty  mo- 
ments, which  came  to  me  at  any  concert 
of  sacred  music,  were  passed  as  I  listened, 
at  the  Music  Hall,  in  April,  1 871,  to  Chris- 
tine Nilsson's  interpretations  of  "  There 
were  shepherds  abiding  in  the  fields  "  and 
"I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth,"  in  a 
performance  of  the  Messiah  given  by  the 

[  m  ] 


A   DRAMATIC    CRITIC 

Handel  and  Haydn  Society.  The  former 
of  the  numbers  named  was,  in  her  mouth, 
a  piece  of  idyllic  religious  poetry,  the 
Pastoral  Symphony  of  the  oratorio,  in- 
formed with  a  soul,  and  uttered,  as  it  were, 
through  the  voices  of  rapt  men  and  jubi- 
lant angels.  The  latter  was  the  only  utter- 
ance of  the  centuries'  great  Song  of  Faith 
to  which  I  had,  or  have,  ever  listened  with 
entire  satisfaction.  Then,  for  the  first  time, 
I  heard  the  spirit's  assurance  of  immor- 
tality breathed  from  its  depths,  not  argued 
with  its  lips.  Here  and  there,  as  in  the 
words  "  Yet  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God  " 
and  "  Now  is  Christ  risen  from  the  dead," 
the  singer,  as  if  overborne  by  a  sudden 
ecstatic  vision,  broke  forth  with  vehe- 
ment intensity;  but  for  the  most  part  the 
words  were  sung  as  by  a  soul  communing 
with  the  Almighty,  not  as  by  a  man  de- 
fending a  doctrine  against  men.  So,  the 
customary  conventional  exaggeration  of 
emphasis   upon  the  "  I    hnoiv "  was  dis- 

[    174    ] 


MEMORABLE   EXPERIENCES 

carded,  and  the  stress  was  thrown  upon 
"  liveth,"  which,  by  some  swift  alchemy  of 
tone  or  accentuation,  was  charged  with  the 
fullness  of  the  soul's  conviction  ;  while,  in 
the  closing  passages  of  the  air,  the  words 
"  the  first  fruits  of  them  that  sleep  "  as- 
cended like  the  breath  of  one  who  longed 
to  be  with  those  that  rest  in  the  hope  of 
a  joyful  resurrection. 

Time  is  most  relentless  in  effacing  re- 
membrance of  the  work  of  public  readers. 
Let  a  strong  word,  then,  be  said  for  Levi 
Thaxter,  who  read  the  poems  of  Robert 
Browning  in  a  fashion  beside  which  all 
other  attempts  in  that  kind  were,  and  yet 
are,  prosaic,  small,  and  faint.  He  was  not 
a  professional  elocutionist,  and  his  efforts 
were  not  deformed  by  mechanical  artifice; 
his  voice  was  sweet,  pure,  and  of  extraor- 
dinary depth  and  reach,  and  his  enuncia- 
tion and  pronunciation  were  elegantly  fault- 
less. The  source  of  his  peculiar  power  was 
in  his  full  sympathy  with  poet  and  poem, 

[    175    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


and  in  his  firm  grasp  of  their  thought. 
His  reading,  as  an  illumination  of  the 
text,  was  marvelous,  and  fairly  compelled 
Browning  to  be  comprehensible,  even  in 
works  as  subtle  and  obscure  as  La  Saisiaz. 
Mr.  Thaxter's  dramatic  gift  was  nothing 
short  of  magnificent,  and  I  put  his  read- 
ing of  the  dialogue  of  Ottima  and  Sebald, 
in  Pippa  Passes,  in  the  same  class,  for 
force  and  completeness,  with  Mrs.  Kem- 
ble's  reading  of  the  Shakespearean  trage- 
dies. 

In  quite  another  kind,  but  unique  and 
highly  remarkable,  was  the  reading  of 
Shelley's  and  Keats's  poetry  by  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Ordway  Partridge,  now  noted  as  a 
sculptor.  Not  much  of  the  verse  of  Shel- 
ley will  bear  putting  under  the  logician's 
press  or  into  the  analyst's  crucible;  but 
some  of  it  is  the  fine  wine  of  poetry, — 
poetry  for  poets,  as  has  been  cleverly  said, 
appealing  to  the  subtlest  parts  of  the  im- 
aginative sense,  as  remote  from  the  com- 


[    ^76    ] 


MEMORABLE   EXPERIENCES 

mon  touch  as  a  rosy  cloud  dissolving  in  a 
sunset  glow.  Mr.  Partridge  read  Shelley 
as  if  he  were  the  author  as  well  as  the 
interpreter  of  the  verse.  His  refined  and 
delicate  beauty  of  face,  intensified  by  a 
rapturous  expression  as  if  he  were  thrilled 
by  the  melody  which  he  made;  the  clear 
tones  of  his  cultivated  voice,  not  widely 
varied  in  modulation,  but  perfect  within 
a  sufficient  range;  his  absolute  plasticity 
and  responsiveness  under  the  thrill  of  the 
music,  combined  to  give  his  reading  an 
exquisitely  appropriate  distinction.  There 
was,  indeed,  in  his  delivery  something 
singularly  lovely  and  impossible  to  de- 
scribe, —  the  product,  apparently,  of  a  gift, 
like  Shelley's  own,  to  charge  mere  sound 
with  sense,  so  that  it  seemed  to  bear  a 
message  almost  without  the  help  of  ar- 
ticulate utterance. 

The  reference  to  Mrs.  Kemble  suggests 
a  contrast  sharply  noted  in  my  mind  a  few 
years  ago.    As  a  very  young  man,  I  had  the 

[    ^77    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


keen  delight  of  hearing  Mrs.  Fanny  Kem- 
ble  at  one  of  the  last  series  of  readings 
which  she  gave  in  the  Meionaon.  I  viv- 
idly recall  the  occasion  when  I  listened 
to  her  delivery  of  The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,  and  was  one  of  an  audience 
which  laughed  itself  almost  faint  over  her 
interpretation  of  Falstaff.  A  middle-aged 
Englishwoman,  in  usual  afternoon  costume, 
read  from  an  ungarnished  platform,  out  of 
the  big  book  which  had  come  down  to 
her  from  her  aunt,  Mrs.  Siddons  !  Some 
thirty  years  later  I  was  present  at  Mr. 
Beerbohm  Tree's  opening  night  in  Boston, 
and  saw  the  leading  actor  —  "  made  up  " 
with  extreme  skill,  assisted  by  an  accom- 
plished company,  using  all  the  appliances 
of  an  excellent  stage  —  succeed  in  carry- 
ing the  part  of  Sir  John  Falstaff,  in  the 
same  comedy,  through  an  entire  evening 
without  once  evoking  a  laugh  for  his  in- 
comparably humorous  text. 

Another  case  of  professional  misfit,  which 

[    178    ] 


MEMORABLE   EXPERIENCES 

worked  less  serious  results,  and,  indeed, 
made  a  remarkable  display  of  ingenuity, 
appeared  during  Miss  Genevieve  Ward's 
last  engagement  in  Boston.  The  play  was 
Henry  VIII.,  Miss  Ward  impersonating 
Queen  Katharine.  Mr.  Louis  James,  her 
leading  man,  was  cast  for  Cardinal  Wol- 
sey.  The  cardinal's  part  is  long  and  hard 
to  learn,  and  very  likely  was  new  to  Mr. 
James,  whose  position  was  onerous.  He 
got  through  the  evening  without  incurring 
or  causing  disaster.  He  hit  his  cues  with 
necessary  precision;  and  it  is  also  true 
that  he  performed  the  astounding  feat  of 
presenting  Wolsey's  words  in  an  original 
paraphrase  ex  tempore.  Of  the  cardinal's 
lines  not  so  many  as  one  in  three  were  ex- 
actly reproduced,  even  the  most  familiar 
sustaining  some  twist  or  variation.  Some- 
times the  original  text  was  entirely  sup- 
pressed. But  Mr.  James's  speech  did  not 
halt,  and  his  mind  demonstrated  extreme 
adresse,  furnishing  his  tongue  with  phrases 

[    179    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


which  carried  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  Dramatist's  meaning,  and  even  fell  de- 
cently in  accord  with  the  rh}i:hmic  scheme 
of  the  verse.  William  Shakespeare,  or 
John  Fletcher,  or  whoever  is  responsible 
for  Wolsey's  share  of  the  dialogue,  would 
have  been  tickled  by  the  actor's  perform- 
ance, which  was  in  the  line  of  the  "  de- 
scant "  that  Elizabethan  gentlemen  were 
expected  to  be  able  to  supply  with  the 
voice,  upon  any  melody,  at  short  notice. 

Madame  Janauschek  is  so  near  the  pre- 
sent day  that  it  has  seemed  best  to  me  not 
to  make  her  work  the  theme  of  extended 
comment.  Her  achievement  on  our  stage 
was  great,  considering  the  handicap  which 
she  sustained  in  dealing  with  a  foreign 
language;  she  had  a  large  style,  and  her 
playing  was  steadily  marked  by  intellectual 
clarity  and  emotional  power.  Her  unique 
performance,  the  assumption  of  the  French 
waiting  maid,  Hortense,  in  the  stage  ver- 
sion  of  Dickens's    Bleak    House,   played 

[    iSo    ] 


MEMORABLE   EXPERIENCES 

under  the  name  of  Chesney  Wold,  is  not 
likely  to  be  forgotten  by  any  who  were 
so  fortunate  as  to  witness  it.  The  French 
accents  and  intonations  of  the  girl  were 
made  piquantly  effective  through  the  op- 
eration of  a  tongue  more  familiar  with 
them  than  with  English  vocables,  and  the 
feline  malice  and  alertness  of  the  char- 
acter —  which  in  the  novel  is  scantily 
outlined  —  were  reproduced  with  high 
picturesqueness  and  vivacity. 

By  natural  association  with  Madame 
Janauschek's  achievement,  there  occurs  to 
my  mind  the  rarest  example  I  have  known 
of  the  fortunate  fitting  of  an  alien  actor 
to  a  part  in  which  all  his  lingual  imperfec- 
tions made  for  ideal  success.  On  the  even- 
ing of  November  5,  1889,  at  the  Tremont 
Theatre  was  performed  a  dramatic  version 
of  Mr.  Howells's  novel,  A  Foregone  Con- 
clusion, with  Alexander  Salvini  as  Don 
Ippolito.  The  play  "  was  caviare  to  the 
general,"  and   was   obviously  deficient  in 

C    181    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


constructive  skill;  but  its  gay  wit,  its  lav- 
ish humor,  —  now  frank  and  direct,  now 
sly  and  ironical,  —  its  intuitive  schemes 
of  character,  its  broad  human  sympathy, 
its  reproduction  of  the  atmosphere  and 
beauty  of  Venice,  and  its  literary  distinc- 
tion made  its  presentation  delightful  to  the 
critical  few.  As  for  Alexander  Salvini,  — 
of  whom,  as  an  artist,  I  entertained,  in 
general,  a  rather  low  opinion,  finding  him 
in  his  larger  attempts  pretty  steadily  com- 
monplace, —  his  impersonation  of  Don  Ip- 
polito  was  a  marvel.  Every  native  physi- 
cal peculiarity  of  the  player  repeated  the 
figure  of  the  romance,  and  the  priest's 
Italianic  English  was  the  actor's  very  own 
dialect.  It  is  to  be  added  that  the  Don's 
timid  sweetness,  naivete,  and  humility, 
and  his  shy  yet  substantial  manliness,  with 
their  overlay  of  southern  finesse,  were 
clearly  appreciated  and  nicely  indicated. 

The    performance,    on    the    evening   of 
May  14,  1888,  at  the  Park  Theatre,  of  Mr. 

[    182    ] 


MEMORABLE   EXPERIENCES 

George  P.  Lathrop's  drama  of  Elaine  has 
taken  a  little  niche  of  its  own  in  my  mind 
and  memory.  The  play,  which  was  in 
blank  verse,  had  real  merit :  its  text  was 
always  smooth,  sweet,  and  graceful,  and 
was  fine  or  fervid  in  a  mode  much  like 
that  of  Tennyson,  the  story  of  whose  idyl 
was  strictly  followed  until  the  final  pas- 
sages, when  grave  liberties  were  taken  with 
Launcelot  and  Guinevere.  The  effect  of 
the  work  and  its  representation  was  to 
transport  the  soul  of  the  spectator  out  of 
the  dusty  glare  of  common  day  into  the 
empurpled  twilight  of  romance.  Through 
Miss  Annie  Russell  the  play  was  supplied 
with  an  ideal  Elaine.  The  actress  had  but 
recently  recovered  from  a  severe  illness, 
and  her  fragile  beauty  and  delicacy  pa- 
thetically befitted  the  lily  maid  of  Astolat. 
Her  gentle  speech  had  a  thrilling  quality 
which  seemed  made  to  utter  the  heart  of 
Elaine.  Few  of  those  who  saw  the  scene 
will  forget  how,  after  love  for  Launcelot 

[    1S3    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


had  entered  her  soul,  she  began  to  look  at 
him  with  a  gaze  as  direct  as  unhesitating, 
and  as  maidenly  as  full  moonlight.  At 
great  moments  the  concentration  and  sim- 
plicity of  her  style  exactly  fulfilled  the 
difficult  conditions  of  the  part ;  the  shud- 
der with  which  she  caught  and  held  her 
breath  when  Launcelot  kissed  her  fore- 
head, the  gasping  pain  of  the  sequent 
words,  "  Mercy,  my  lord,"  and  the  dry 
despair  of  her  "  Of  all  this  will  I  nothing," 
will  be  long  and  deservedly  remembered. 
Few  more  beautiful  scenes  have  been 
shown  upon  the  stage  than  the  fifth  tableau, 
which  reproduced  a  famous  picture,  and 
exhibited  the  barge,  draped  in  black  samite, 
bearing  the  body  of  the  maiden  —  pale  as 
the  lily  which  her  right  hand  held,  the 
"  dead  oar'd  by  the  dumb  "  old  servitor 
—  upward  with  the  flood. 


[    184    ] 


XIX 

An  American  Theatre  Privately 
Endowed 

MY  last  word  may  well  bear  my 
message  of  desire  and  hope  for 
the  theatre  in  America.  Some 
fourteen  years  ago,  I  began  to  contend  in 
public  for  the  establishment  in  one  of  our 
largest  cities  of  a  playhouse  which  should 
be  supported  or  "  backed  "  by  the  munifi- 
cence of  two  or  more  men  of  great  wealth 
and  proportionate  intelligence,  —  even  as 
the  Symphony  Orchestra  in  Boston  is 
maintained  by  one  public-spirited  gentle- 
man. It  is  to  be  a  theatre  libre  in  that  it 
is  to  be  absolutely  absolved  from  slavery 
to  its  patrons  and  box  office.  As  a  place 
of  edification,  it  is  not  to  be  a  kindergarten 
for  infants  who  still  suck  their  sustenance 

[    185    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


from  a  "  vaudeville  "  bottle,  nor  a  primary 
or  grammar  school  for  small  children, 
but  a  high  school  or  university  for  adults, 
dedicated  to  the  higher  culture  of  that 
great  "  humanity,"  the  histrionic  art.  For 
this  house  are  to  be  engaged  the  best- 
equipped  managers,  and  the  most  highly 
accomplished  company  of  actors,  artists, 
and  artisans  that  the  country  can  furnish; 
and  on  its  stage  are  to  be  produced,  with 
the  closest  attainable  approximation  to 
completeness,  only  clean  plays,  of  real 
merit.  These  dramas  are  to  be  in  every 
key  and  color,  of  any  and  every  nation,  of 
any  period  in  time.  Rare  inducements 
will  be  held  out  for  the  production  of  new 
and  original  works,  of  which  the  censor- 
ship will  be  critical,  yet  catholic  and  un- 
niggardly  ;  but  there  will  be  no  limitation 
of  the  field  to  the  domestic  inclosure. 
This  theatre  once  open  and  operant,  let 
the  dear  public  attend  or  not,  as  it  pleases; 


[    186    ] 


AN   ENDOWED   THEATRE 

and  let  the  experiment  be  faithfully  tried 
for  three  years. 

From  the  effecting  of  such  a  scheme  I 
did  not  expect,  soon  or  ever,  every  con- 
ceivable advantage.  I  did  not,  in  prevision, 
anticipate  the  speedy  regeneration  of  the 
theatre  as  an  "  institution,"  the  prompt 
suppression  of  cheap  and  vulgar  plays,  the 
immediate  elevation  of  public  taste.  But 
I  was  confident  —  judging  by  the  success 
of  similar  enterprises,  and  by  the  paral- 
lelism of  European  theatres  maintained 
by  national  and  civic  subsidies  or  organ- 
ized subscription  —  that  salutary  results 
would  flow  from  a  theatre  thus  maintained 
and  managed.  This  playhouse  would  at 
once  be  the  talk  of  the  country  ;  and  the 
city  that  contained  it  would  soon  be  a 
dramatic  Mecca,  drawing  to  itself  from 
every  part  of  the  land  true  amateurs  of 
the  drama  and  of  acting.  A  standard  of 
high  excellence  would  be  set  up,  and  held 
up  to  view,  in  respect  both  of  material  of 

[    1S7    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


programme  and  mode  of  representation. 
By  and  by  our  swift  people  would  respond 
and  appreciate.  Before  many  years  had 
passed,  we  should  have  our  own  American 
Theatre,  evolving  the  material  of  a  fine 
tradition,  dedicated  to  the  best  expression 
of  a  great  art;  and  by  the  time  that  point 
was  reached.  Conservatories  of  Acting 
would  be  clustered  about  the  new  house, 
and  be  preparing  to  feed  its  companies 
with  trained  actors  and  actresses. 

Much  good  ought  eventually  to  come 
to  the  theatrical  profession  out  of  the 
maintenance  of  such  a  privately  endowed 
theatre:  first  and  obviously,  through  the 
higher  esteem  and  appreciation  which  ac- 
tors would  then  receive  from  the  public; 
secondly,  through  the  advance  in  means 
of  training  which  would  be  open  to  neo- 
phytes. It  will  be  a  shame  if  we  do  not 
develop  a  great  race  of  actors  in  this  coun- 
try. The  American  temperament  is,  I  be- 
lieve, the  best  adapted  of  any  in  the  world 

C    i88    ] 


AN  ENDOWED   THEATRE 

for  histrionic  success.  As  a  nation  we  unite 
English  thoughtfulness,  steadfastness,  and 
aplomb  with  Gallic  vivacity,  intuition,  and 
speed.  It  is  true,  as  I  said  in  a  former 
article,  that  our  native  artists  show  ex- 
traordinary swiftness  and  sensibility  and  a 
very  large  mimetic  gift,  and  that  the  gen- 
eral level  of  histrionic  attainment  is  high, 
considering  the  desultory  character  of  the 
instruction  upon  which  a  large  majority  of 
our  players  are  obliged  to  depend.  There- 
fore, not  only  very  good,  but  the  very  best 
things  are  to  be  hoped  for,  when  our  ad- 
mirable domestic  material  is  treated  by 
competent  masters,  in  schools  attached  to 
a  theatre  of  the  highest  grade. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  for  me  to  say  that 
it  is  my  idea  that  the  leaven  of  such  an 
American  Theatre  would  work  sooner  or 
later  in  the  lump  as  a  discourager  of  the 
prevailing  flimsiness  and  triviality  of  our 
public  shows.  Thus  far,  by  the  quality  of 
the  supply  of  plays  proceeding  from  Ameri- 

[    189    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 

can  writers,  one  can  gauge  the  quality  of 
the  demand.  Our  authors  do  not  lack  clev- 
erness :  Mr.  Barnard,  Mr.  Belasco,  Mr. 
Thomas,  Mr.  Howard,  Mr.  Gillette,  Mr. 
Fitch,  and  others  show  real  ability.  But 
when  one  considers  that  Mr.  Gillette's 
Secret  Service  —  theatrically  effective  — 
represents  the  high- water  mark,  "up  to 
date,"  of  our  playwriting  ;  that  it  is,  so  to 
speak,  the  Hamlet  of  American  dramatic 
literature,  it  is  evident  that  something  is 
needed  to  direct  our  feet  into  other  ways, 
if  we  aspire  to  any  great  achievements  in 
this  kind  for  our  country. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  pro- 
posed theatre,  if  it  became  successful  and 
permanent,  would  do  something  to  de- 
velop and  elevate  public  taste  in  respect 
of  players  as  well  as  plays.  It  would  be 
refreshing  —  especially  in  Boston,  the  naif 
and  omnivorous  —  to  note  a  progress  up- 
ward on  this  line.  Apparently,  the  move- 
ment of  late  years  has  been  in  the  other 

[    190   ] 


AN   ENDOWED   THEATRE 

direction.  I  saw  it  noted  as  a  remarkable 
circumstance,  in  one  of  my  criticisms  of 
Mr.  Fechter  and  Miss  Leclercq,  more  than 
twenty-five  years  ago,  that  the  chief  artists 
were  called  before  the  curtain  "  as  many 
as  five  times  "  at  the  end  of  the  most  im- 
portant act  of  a  classic  play.  On  the  night 
when  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  was  first  pro- 
duced in  Paris,  elderly  men  shouted  their 
bravos,  and,  at  the  close  of  the  third  act, 
embraced  one  another,  with  tears  of  joy, 
crying  out,  "  Le  Cid!  Le  Cid!"  If  that 
spectacle,  which  is  truly  impressive,  seems 
absurd  to  a  Bostonian,  what  has  he  to  say 
to  one  of  his  own  first-night  audiences, 
which,  a  few  years  since,  brought  a  pleas- 
ing little  actress,  who  had  done  a  bit  of 
pretty  comedy  gracefully  and  piquantly, 
seventeen  times  to  the  footlights,  midway 
of  the  performance,  bestowing  such  honors 
and  plaudits  upon  the  player  as  she  would 
scarcely  have  deserved  if  she  had  been 
Miss  Neilson  and  Miss  Cushman  rolled 

[    191    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


into  one,  and  doing  her  greatest  work  in  a 
play  of  commanding  power  ? 

As  a  mere  Bostonian,  indeed,  I  should 
like  to  see  some  uplifting  agency  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  taste  of  my  native  town. 
New  York,  though  cynical  and  capricious, 
and  scandaled  by  a  clamor  which  charges 
some  of  its  newspapers  with  bondage  to 
some  of  its  theatres,  has  developed  a  taste 
of  some  fastidiousness  and  discrimination. 
Boston  stays  childishly  greedy,  the  pet  of 
all  the  theatrical  managers,  with  whom  it 
ranks  as  "  the  first  show  town"  of  America, 
—  the  place,  that  is  to  say,  whose  patronage 
for  every  form  of  theatrical  entertainment, 
bad  and  good,  is  surest  and,  in  proportion 
to  its  size,  largest. 

A  better  day  for  the  drama  and  the  thea- 
tre in  America  is  sure  to  dawn.  The  actors 
are  readier  than  the  public  for  a  change  to 
nobler  conditions;  and  the  public,  now 
learning  to  demand  of  and  for  itself  the 
best  things  in  many  departments  of  life, 

[    ^92    ] 


AN   ENDOWED   THEATRE 

will  not  always  rest  content  with  condi- 
tions that  encourage  mediocrity,  and  do 
discourage  vulgarity,  in  that  Theatre  upon 
which  it  depends  for  the  larger  part  of  its 
entertainment 


[    193    ] 


XX 

Henry  Irving 

TO  say  that  of  all  the  actors  who 
have  appeared  in  this  country  Mr. 
Irving  is  the  hardest  to  criticise 
fairly  and  intelligently  is  to  state  a  vexa- 
tious truth  with  extreme  moderation.  The 
leading  English  critics,  after  years  of  famil- 
iarity with  his  acting,  are  still  puzzled  by 
it,  and  find  a  difficult}^,  which  seems  al- 
most exactly  proportioned  to  their  acute- 
ness  and  candor,  in  analyzing  it  and  in 
accounting  for  its  effects.  And  the  pro- 
blem is  complicated,  or  appears  to  be 
complicated,  for  Americans  by  the  intro- 
duction of  a  peculiar  factor:  this  is  the 
necessity,  immediately  imposed  upon  us  by 
Mr.  Irving  and  his  friends,  of  setting  off 
our  knowledge  of  his  slowly  won  success 

[   194  3 


HENRY  IRVING 


against  any  lively  dissatisfaction  which 
may  attend  our  early  impressions  of  his  per- 
formance. His  great  success  is  indeed  not 
to  be  doubted;  but  the  amplest  knowledge 
on  this  head  will  include  the  facts  that 
even  in  England  there  are  a  small  number 
of  persons,  of  a  high  intellectual  order,  who 
detest  and  abhor  his  playing,  and  that  every- 
where, in  the  best  English  society,  "to 
admire  him  without  reserve  is  held  eccen- 
tric to  the  verge  of  affectation."  As  for  the 
deprecation  which  is  used  by  Mr.  Irving's 
admirers  to  quench  the  anticipated  violence 
of  our  first  displeasure,  surely  the  like  of 
it  was  never  before  known  in  the  case 
of  an  actor.  "  Be  patient  with  his  manner- 
isms" is  the  innocent  and  slender  phrase 
employed;  but  this  is  presently  found  to 
bear  an  awful  burden  of  meaning.  We 
find  that  we  are  asked  to  forgive,  under 
the  name  of  mannerisms,  sins  which  we 
have  always  accounted  unpardonable  in  a 
dramatic  artist.    It  is  much,  it  seems  at  first 

[    195    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


blush,  as  if  an  amateur  of  painting  were 
to  say,  "You  will  be  delighted  with  M. 
Blank's  pictures.  He  has  some  unpleasant 
mannerisms,  to  be  sure,  —  his  coloring  is 
poor  and  his  drawing  incorrect;  but  in  spite 
of  these,  you  are  sure  to  like  his  work." 
Or  as  if  an  acquaintance  were  to  recom- 
mend for  confidential  clerk  a  young  man 
who  was  a  little  weak  on  the  score  of 
honesty  and  accuracy,  but,  aside  from  these 
trifling  mannerisms,  had  every  desirable 
qualification.  The  view  which  a  majority 
of  Mr.  Irving's  American  auditors  naturally 
take,  at  first,  of  his  inost  conspicuous  faults 
is  highly  unfavorable.  It  is,  indeed,  the 
view  which  the  more  critical  portion  of 
his  English  audiences  took  when  they  were 
beginning  to  make  his  acquaintance.  And 
the  difference  in  the  attitudes  of  the  French 
and  the  English  nations  towards  the  art  of 
acting  cannot  be  better  indicated  than  in 
this:  that  Mr.  Irving,  in  spite  of  his  faults, 
is  to-day  accepted  and  recognized  as  the 

[    196    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


greatest  actor  of  his  land;  while,  if  he  had 
been  a  Frenchman,  he  and  his  "  manner- 
isms "  would  not  have  been  tolerated  on 
the  Parisian  stage  for  a  month,  and  prob- 
abl}'  not  for  a  single  performance. 

In  Mr.  William  Archer's  exceedingly 
brilliant  "  study  "  of  Mr.  Irving,  which  was 
printed  in  London  a  few  years  ago,  it  was 
said  that  the  English  critics,  "  obeying 
an  inevitable  tendency  of  dramatic  criti- 
cism," have  "  made  Mr.  Irving  a  law  unto 
himself."  In  this  country,  the  dangers 
attendant  upon  close  familiarity  with  the 
actor  do  not  beset  us;  and  I  plead  an 
American's  "  innocence  of  eye  "  —  to  use 
Mr.  Ruskin's  happy  phrase  —  in  extenu- 
ation of  my  somewhat  premature  attempt 
to  determine  Mr.  Irving's  rank  as  an  artist. 
The  disadvantages  of  slight  acquaintance 
with  the  actor,  on  the  part  of  the  general 
audience  or  the  particular  critic,  are  of 
course  plain.  But  it  is  most  interesting  and 
suggestive   to   see   how   swiftly  and    how 

[    197    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


completely  the  story  of  Mr.  Irving's  later 
career  in  England  has  been  repeated  in 
America.  Twenty  years  or  more  of  Lon- 
don have  already  been  epitomized  in  a 
year  of  New  York,  Boston,  and  Chicago. 
We  also  now  have  a  small  but  knowing 
faction  who  violently  reject  and  refuse  him, 
denying  him  even  the  name  of  actor;  a 
large  and  fashionable  class  who  are  inclined 
to  demonstrate  their  culture  by  taking  him 
as  the  object  of  a  cult;  a  great  public  who 
accept  him,  with  all  his  demerits,  as  an 
artist  of  remarkable  parts  and  powers.  In 
other  words,  Mr.  Irving  has  met  with  full 
and  hearty  recognition  in  America,  and 
with  a  remarkable  measure  of  success. 
And  although  the  voice  of  fierce  dispraise 
is  not  and  never  will  be  quite  silenced,  the 
number  of  conversions  which  have  been 
made  from  the  ranks  of  his  early  detractors 
is  comically  large.  The  "  heretics,"  who 
used  to  go  to  scoff,  already  remain,  as  Mr. 
Archer  says,  "not,  perhaps,  to  pray,  but 

[    198    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


at  least  to  reflect   and    qualify   their    un- 
belief." 

Let  us  swiftly,  but  not  carelessly,  review 
the  grosser  blemishes  of  Mr.  Irving's  style. 
I  do  not  find  these  so  offensive  that  I  can- 
not endure  them  for  the  sake  of  becoming 
familiar  with  his  art,  though  it  is  an  odd 
experience  to  subject  one's  self  to  a  hard- 
ening process  as  the  condition  precedent 
of  sensitiveness  and  insight ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  earnestly  protest  against  any 
and  every  attitude  of  mind  in  Mr.  Irving's 
auditors  which  shall  result  in  their  disre- 
garding or  tolerating  his  more  atrocious 
offenses.  Mr.  Irving,  as  has  been  suc- 
cinctly said,  can  "  neither  walk  nor  talk." 
Amazing  paradox,  —  of  which  "  the  time  " 
now  "  gives  proof,"  —  that  the  most  suc- 
cessful and  cultivated  of  English  actors 
should  not  have  mastered  the  rudiments 
of  his  art  !  Whatever  explanation  or 
apology  there  may  be,  the  fact  remains, 
and  its  enormity  cannot  be  gainsaid.    He 

[    199    ] 


A   DRAMATIC    CRITIC 

has  been  on  the  stage  the  larger  part  of 
his  life,  and  yet  he  has  not  learned  how  to 
sit,  stand,  or  move  with  the  ease,  repose, 
vigor,  and  grace  which  are  by  turns  or  all 
together  appropriate  to  attitude  or  action; 
and,  worse  even  than  this,  he  does  not 
know  how  to  speak  his  own  language.  He 
has  many  lucid  intervals  of  elegant  mo- 
tion and  pure  speech,  —  trebly  exasper- 
ating as  a  demonstration  that  his  faults 
are  not  the  consequence  of  utter  physical 
incapacity,  —  but  he  can  never  be  quite 
trusted  with  his  legs,  his  shoulders,  or  his 
tongue  for  five  consecutive  minutes.  His 
ungracefulness  is  bad,  but,  as  was  just  now 
implied,  it  is  a  venial  fault  in  comparison 
with  his  atrocious  enunciation.  If  there 
were  such  a  crime  as  lingua-matricide, 
Mr.  Irving  would  have  suffered  its  ex- 
treme penalty  long  ago;  for  night  after 
night  he  has  done  foul  murder  upon  his 
mother-tongue.  Soon  after  his  arrival  in 
New  York,  Mr.  Irving  was  reported  to 

[    200    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


have  said  that  he  hoped  the  Americans 
would  not  be  intolerant  towards  any  Eng- 
lish mannerisms  of  his  speech  which  might 
offend  their  unaccustomed  ears.  If  he  said 
this,  and  said  it  seriously,  the  remark  may 
be  taken  as  a  curious  proof  of  his  uncon- 
sciousness of  the  peculiarities  of  his  de- 
livery. For  his  oddities  of  utterance  are 
no  more  English  than  they  are  Choctaw  ; 
sometimes  they  suggest  Cornwall,  some- 
times Devonshire,  occasionally  northern 
Vermont.  But  such  hints  are  given  by  fits 
and  starts  ;  the  dialect  is  always  substan- 
tially his  own,  an  Irving  patois^  developed 
out  of  his  own  throat  and  brain  through 
the  operation  of  the  familiar  law  of  the 
survival  of  the  unfittest.  An  alternate 
swallowing  and  double-edging  of  conso- 
nants, a  frequent  lapse  into  an  impure  nasal 
quality,  an  exclusion  of  nearly  all  chest 
tones,  the  misdelivery  of  the  vowels  by 
improper  prolongation  or  equally  improper 
abbreviation,  an  astonishing  habit  of  con- 

[     20I      ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


founding  and  confusing  different  vowel 
sounds,  are  the  most  marked  of  his  disa- 
greeable peculiarities.  The  great  broad 
vowels  are  the  ones  which  fare  the  worst 
in  Mr.  Irving's  mouth,  and  the  reform  of 
his  delivery  must  therefore  be  regarded  as 
hopeless  ;  an  actor  of  middle  age  whose 
chief  pronunciations  of  "  face  "  are  faaace 
and  feaace,  and  of  "  no "  are  nao  and 
nawo,  is  past  praying  for  in  this  regard. 
Yet  it  is  a  part,  and  an  important  part,  of 
the  duty  of  the  stage  to  be  a  pronouncing 
dictionary  of  the  language,  to  bear  aloft 
the  standard  of  correct  and  elegant  speech, 
and  to  make  a  constant  appeal  to  the  pub- 
lic ear  in  behalf  of  pure  and  refined  enun- 
ciation. This  function  of  the  stage  is  one 
which  the  unmitigated  partisans  of  Mr. 
Irving  regard  with  supremely  contemptu- 
ous indifference.  Indeed,  they  go  much 
further,  and,  with  more  or  less  careless 
expressions  of  regret  at  his  mannerisms, 
speak  of  his  faults  in  this  kind  as  super- 

[    202    ] 


HENRY  IRVING 


ficial  and  unessential  ;  of  elocution  as  a 
matter  of  form,  and  not  of  substance.  And 
they  constantly  inquire  whether  the  spirit 
within  the  artist  is  not  of  more  importance 
than  the  character  of  the  tool  with  which 
he  works.  The  inquiry  is  pertinent,  the 
correct  answer  obvious,  the  figure  em- 
ployed a  good  one.  An  actor  is  like  a 
painter,  and  the  soul  of  the  limner  is  of 
much  more  consequence  than  the  shape 
of  his  implements.  But  if  the  artist  has 
only  a  boot-brush  and  a  palette-knife  to 
work  with,  his  soul  will  find  great  diffi- 
culty in  giving  expression  to  its  inspira- 
tions. Mr.  Irving's  acting  often  reminds 
me  of  the  work  of  such  a  painter.  It  is 
a  perpetual  annoyance  to  see  how  ill  his 
hand  and  tongue  subserve  his  purposes; 
how  the  poorness  of  his  tools  is  shown  in 
dull  or  ugly  lines  ;  in  other  words,  how 
his  absurd  enunciation  disables  and  dis- 
credits his  thought.  It  is  necessary  to  go 
even   further.     Mr.   Irving's    elocution   is 

[    203    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


bad  in  other  and  perhaps  more  important 
ways  than  those  already  indicated  :  his 
voice  possesses  very  little  resonance,  and 
almost  no  richness  of  tone  j  it  is  high- 
pitched  and  has  a  narrow  range ;  he  seems 
absolutely  incapable  of  sustained  power 
and  variety  in  speech,  and  the  inevitable 
consequence  is  that  his  declamation,  es- 
pecially of  long  passages,  is  exceptionally 
weak  and  ineffectual.  The  trouble  with  the 
artist  here  lies  in  the  want  of  something 
more  important  than  a  delicate  brush; 
he  has  no  proper  assortment  of  colors  to 
choose  from,  —  little  more,  indeed,  than 
plain  black  and  white,  —  and  Mr.  Irving's 
work  under  these  conditions,  when  he  aims 
at  very  strong  effects,  seems  like  the 
attempt  of  a  painter  in  monochrome  to 
reproduce  the  complicated  beauty  of  a 
sublime  scene  in  nature. 

That  the  most  conspicuous  English- 
speaking  actor  of  the  day  should  be  thus 
poorly  equipped  for  his  work  may  well  be 

[    204    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


the  subject  of  wonder  to  every  thought- 
ful person.  A  scrutinizing  glance  at  the 
man  will  furnish  some  new  matter  for 
wonder,  but  will  also  afford  the  beginning 
of  an  explanation  of  his  remarkable  hold 
upon  the  public.  The  tall,  slender,  flat- 
chested  figure  ;  the  high  forehead  defined 
at  its  base  by  strongly  marked  and  ex- 
ceedingly flexible  eyebrows  ;  the  large, 
positive  nose  ;  the  narrow,  sensitive  lips  ; 
the  long,  thin  jaw  ;  the  large,  deep-set, 
darkly-luminous  eyes,  belong  to  a  most 
striking  and  impressive  personality.  Speak- 
ing for  myself,  I  should  say  that  Mr.  Ir- 
ving's  face  is  without  exception  the  most 
fascinating  I  have  seen  upon  the  stage. 
Once  beheld,  it  will  not  out  of  the  mem- 
ory ;  and  I  find,  upon  sifting  my  recol- 
lections, that,  when  there  is  no  deliberate 
effort  of  my  will,  his  face  appears  to  me, 
not  under  the  distorting  or  glorifying  trans- 
formations of  the  stage,  but  with  its  usual 
look  of  quiet  and  somewhat  sad  thought- 

[    205    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


fulness.  It  is  a  countenance  obviously  not 
adapted  for  all  parts,  perhaps  not  appro- 
priate for  many  ;  but  wherever  it  is  seen 
it  immediately  constrains  and  inflexibly 
retains  the  attention  of  the  spectator.  There 
is  no  impropriety  in  saying  that  this  pecul- 
iar charm  seems  to  grow  out  of  the  nature 
of  the  man  himself,  —  out  of  a  rare  and 
lofty  refinement,  a  subtile  and  delicate  in- 
tellectuality, a  largeness  and  sweetness  of 
nature.  The  quality  of  refinement,  indeed, 
makes  itself  felt  in  everything  which  Mr. 
Irving  does  or  says;  strongly  appealing, 
I  have  observed,  even  to  persons  of  no 
special  cultivation  ;  marking  the  tone  of 
his  ordinary  speech,  whether  the  sound  be 
agreeable  to  the  ear  or  otherwise;  never 
forsaking  his  delivery  when  his  enunciation 
is  most  uncouth  ;  and  clinging  like  a  faint 
odor,  in  spite  of  all  the  artist's  fumigating 
processes,  to  such  repulsive  impersonations 
as  his  Dubosc  and  his  Louis.  For  the 
purposes  of  the  dramatic  art,  Mr.  Irving's 

[    206    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


face  is  found  to  be  singularly  well  adapted, 
within  the  limits  which  will  presently  be 
shown,  to  the  indication  of  fear,  disgust, 
suspicion,  malice,  envy,  superstition,  and 
hatred,  and  to  be  incomparably  well  fitted 
for  the  expression  of  dignity,  reserve,  and 
melancholy.  It  is  capable  of  gentle  but 
not  poignant  pathos,  of  a  certain  sort  of 
unmirthful  intellectual  mirth,  and  scarcely 
at  all  of  heroic  scorn,  wrath,  frenzy,  de- 
spair, or  exaltation.  Mr.  Irving  uses  ges- 
ture sparingly,  —  a  fault,  if  it  be  a  fault 
at  all,  which  is  near  akin  to  a  virtue,  — 
and  not  in  such  a  way  as  to  contribute  to 
the  vivacity  or  significance  of  his  text ; 
a  statement  which  at  once  demands  quali- 
fication in  favor  of  some  half  dozen  bits 
of  brilliant  or  beautiful  illustrative  ges- 
ture which  I  can  recall,  and  nearly  all  of 
which  are  divided  between  Hamlet  and 
Shylock.  In  the  art  of  fencing,  if  one 
may  judge  by  the  duel  of  Hamlet  with 
Laertes,  Mr.  Irving  is  a  master  j  and  the 

[    207    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


evidence  given  in  that  scene  of  the  docil- 
ity of  the  actor's  muscles  as  the  result  of 
his  training  is  to  be  added  to  the  mass  of 
inconsistent  testimony  which  makes  Mr. 
Irving  the  least  comprehensible  of  actors 
in  respect  to  his  professional  equipment. 

The  prime  distinctions  of  Mr.  Irving's 
acting  and  the  chief  sources  of  its  effective- 
ness and  charm  are  its  intensity,  its  artis- 
tic propriety,  and  its  intellectuality;  all 
these  being,  of  course,  derived  or  reflected 
from  the  artist's  mind.  By  intensity  I  mean 
here  that  quality  which  results  from  the 
actor's  capacity  of  delivering  himself  and 
all  his  forces  and  faculties,  without  reser- 
vation, to  the  demands  of  the  character 
which  he  assumes.  The  sum  of  Mr.  Ir- 
ving's powers  is  much  less  than  that  of 
many  other  great  players,  but  I  have  never 
seen  an  actor  whose  absorption  in  his  work 
was  so  nearly  complete  and  unintermitted 
as  his.  He  never  trifles,  never  forgets 
himself,  never  wearies,  never  relaxes  the 

[    208    ] 


HENRY  IRVING 


grip  which  he  at  once  takes  upon  his  part. 
It  may  be  Hamlet  or  Mathias,  Charles  I. 
or  Louis  XL,  Lesurques  or  Dubosc:  from 
the  moment  of  Mr.  Irving's  first  appear- 
ance he  gives  up  to  its  service  "  the  execu- 
tion of  his  wit,  hands,  heart."  That  this 
intensity  is  accompanied  by  indications  of 
self-consciousness  in  the  actor,  and  that 
every  such  indication  impairs  the  worth  of 
his  work,  is  true;  but  the  injury  in  this 
kind  is  much  less  than  any  one,  upon  a 
merely  theoretic  consideration  of  Mr.  Ir- 
ving's art,  would  believe  to  be  possible. 
His  absolute  sincerity  of  purpose  is  indeed 
the  burdock  which  heals  most  of  the 
wounds  made  by  the  nettle  of  self-con- 
sciousness. The  dramatic  consequence  of 
such  a  high  intensity  is  obviously  great, 
but  the  value  of  the  quality  in  holding  the 
attention  of  audiences  is  inestimable.  The 
spectator  soon  discovers  that  it  will  not  do 
to  skip  any  part  of  the  performance;  that 
if  he  leaves  Mr.  Irving  out  of  sight  or  out 

[    209    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


of  mind  for  a  single  second  he  may  lose 
some  highly  significant  look  or  action. 
The  impersonation  of  Mathias,  in  The 
Bells,  best  illustrates  this,  perhaps,  although 
any  one  of  his  assumptions  would  serve 
almost  equally  well.  There  are  but  two 
prominent  ideas  in  the  part  of  Mathias: 
remorse  for  the  commission  of  a  murder, 
fear  of  detection  and  punishment.  Through 
Mr.  Irving's  utter  self -surrender,  these 
thoughts  are  present  in  every  moment  of 
his  effort,  each  portion  of  which  bears  the 
same  relation  to  the  whole  that  a  drop 
of  water  bears  to  a  bucketful.  Or,  rather, 
the  spirit  of  the  character  may  be  said  to 
pervade  the  representation  as  the  soul, 
according  to  certain  metaphysicians,  per- 
vades the  body,  "being  all  in  the  whole 
and  all  in  every  part."  So  that  it  is  not 
extravagant  to  say  that  the  nervous  appre- 
hension of  an  undetected  criminal  is  to  be 
seen  in  every  look,  movement,  and  tone  of 
Mr.  Irving's  Mathias,  from  his  entrance 

C     2IO     ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


on  the  stage  to  the  last  instant  of  his  death 
agony;  appearing  as  obviously  to  the  view 
when  he  tenderly  embraces  his  daughter 
as  when,  in  talk,  he  nervously  courses 
around  his  secret,  or  turns  into  a  statue  of 
anguish  and  terror  at  the  imagined  sound 
of  the  memory-haunting  bells. 

Mr.  Irving's  artistic  sense  is  exceedingly 
just  and  delicate,  and  is  an  ever-present 
factor  in  his  performance.  In  witnessing 
eight  of  his  impersonations,  I  never  saw  it 
fail  him,  except  occasionally  in  a  presen- 
tation of  Doricourt,  in  The  Belle's  Strat- 
agem, which  was  given  at  the  close  of  a 
very  fatiguing  engagement.  This  faculty 
in  Mr.  Irving  is  pictorial,  —  nothing  about 
him  or  his  art  being  in  any  sense  statu- 
esque, —  and  makes  him,  with  the  help  of 
his  intensity,  the  most  entirely  picturesque 
actor  of  our  time.  Mademoiselle  Bernhardt 
has  a  gift  of  like  nature,  but  not  equally 
high  in  quality  or  large  in  measure.  In  all 
his  assumptions  there  is  an  abundance  of 

[     211     3 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


delicate  shading,  of  careful  adjustment  and 
contrast,  of  nice  relation  between  parts; 
no  touch  is  made  so  much  for  its  own  sake 
as  for  its  contribution  to  the  general  effect; 
and  though  the  inability  to  use  grand  and 
immediately  effective  strokes  marks  one 
of  Mr.  Irving's  peculiar  limitations,  the 
difference,  in  this  respect,  between  his 
work  and  most  of  the  popular  perform- 
ance, with  its  vulgar  and  violent  sacrifice 
of  the  truth  and  beauty  of  nature  to  the 
frenzy  for  making  points,  is  very  striking, 
and  altogether  in  his  favor.  In  his  finest 
efforts  his  skill  in  this  kind  is  masterly, 
and  fills  the  appreciative  spectator  with 
the  liveliest  pleasure.  Among  these,  Louis 
XL  stands  easily  first,  and  Dubosc,  of  The 
Lyons  Mail,  is  second,  with  no  long  inter- 
val. A  more  thorough  and  complete  em- 
bodiment of  wickedness  than  the  former 
impersonation  —  of  cunning,  cruelty,  sen- 
suality, treachery,  cowardice,  and  envy, 
each  vice  being  subordinate  to  a  passionate 

[     212     ] 


HENRY  IRVING 


superstition,  which  it  feeds,  and  by  which, 
again,  it  is  fed  —  can  hardly  be  conceived. 
Every  utterance  of  the  strident,  nasal  voice, 
with  its  snaps  and  snarls,  its  incisive  tones 
of  hatred,  its  hard  notes  of  jealousy,  its 
cold  accents  of  suspicion,  its  brief  touches 
of  slimy  sweetness  when  a  saint  is  to  be 
propitiated  by  devotion,  or  a  foe  is  to 
be  destroyed  by  flattery;  every  movement 
of  the  false,  sneering,  lustful  lips;  every 
attitude  of  the  feeble  frame,  which  in  the 
midst  of  its  decrepit  ugliness  has  instants 
of  regal  dignity;  every  one  of  the  count- 
less expressions  of  the  eyes  and  eyebrows, 
with  their  wonderful  power  of  questioning, 
qualifying,  searching,  doubting,  insinuat- 
ing, and  denying,  —  of  all  these  and  many 
more  details  in  this  marvelous  picture, 
each  one  is  absolutely  true  to  life;  each 
one  has  its  own  place  and  significance, 
and  its  own  precise  relation  to  the  general 
effect;  none  is  exaggerated  or  unduly  in- 
trusive.   A  finer,  truer,  and  more  artistic 

[    213    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


adaptation  of  means  to  ends  than  this  has 
not  been  seen  upon  the  stage  within  our 
time.  Dubosc  is  as  depraved  a  character 
as  Louis:  but  in  the  robber  of  the  Lyons 
mail-coach  reckless  courage  replaces  ti- 
midity; violence  alone  does  the  work 
which  the  king  divides  between  it  and 
chicane,  and  the  element  of  superstition 
is  wanting.  The  professional  thief  and 
murderer  is  of  course  less  varied  and  in- 
teresting than  the  kingly  member  of  his 
guild.  But  Mr.  Irving's  portraiture  of  the 
former  is  of  comparatively  less  dramatic 
worth  for  that  reason,  and  no  other.  His 
Dubosc  is  perfect  in  its  kind,  and  the  con- 
trasts between  it  and  Louis  serve  to  ex- 
emplify not  only  the  keen  discrimination 
of  the  actor,  but  the  fine  propriety  and 
thoroughness  of  his  artistic  sense.  The 
theme  is  low,  but  there  is  a  high  and  legit- 
imate aesthetic  pleasure  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  such  a  creature  as  Dubosc,  when 
face,  carriage,  speech,  and  action,  the  very 

C    214   ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


movement  of  the  hands  in  the  division  of 
booty,  the  kick  and  sprawl  of  the  legs  in 
the  recklessness  of  drunken  joy,  are  vivid 
tints  in  a  picture  of  magnificently  com- 
plete ruffianism.  The  personation  of  the 
king,  in  Mr.  Wills's  tragedy  of  Charles 
I.,  also  offers  many  fine  illustrations  of  the 
same  artistic  quality  in  Mr.  Irving,  and  I 
regret  that  I  have  no  more  space  than  will 
suffice  for  a  mention  of  its  melancholy 
beauty,  its  refinement,  and  the  exquisite 
gentleness  of  manner  which  waits  upon  its 
regality  of  soul. 

But  the  principal  source  of  Mr.  Irving's 
professional  power  and  success  lies  in  the 
character  and  quality  of  his  intellect.  Many 
of  our  native  players,  both  of  tragedy  and 
comedy,  are  persons  of  decided  mental 
force;  but  Mr.  Irving  appears  to  me  to 
demonstrate  by  his  performances  his  right 
to  the  first  place  in  the  scale  of  pure  in- 
telligence, among  all  the  actors  of  every 
nationality  whom  I  have  seen,  Mr.  Edwin 

[    215    ] 


A  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


Booth  and  Madame  Ristori  holding  the  po- 
sitions next  in  honor.  It  is  an  old  axiom 
of  the  dramatic  art  that  temperament  is 
of  the  first,  second,  and  third  conse- 
quence in  the  actor.  Mr.  Irving  does  not 
shake  my  faith  in  this  truth,  but  I  admit 
that  his  career  goes  far  to  show  that,  in 
exceptional  cases,  the  intellect  may  suc- 
cessfully take  upon  itself  a  considerable 
part  of  the  burden  which  is  usually  borne 
by  other  portions  of  the  artistic  nature.  It 
makes,  of  course,  the  greatest  difference 
what  kind  of  a  mind  is  in  question,  for 
much  more  than  mere  mental  strength 
will  be  required.  Mr.  Irving's  intelligence 
seems  to  be  of  remarkable  power,  breadth, 
subtilty,  and  keenness;  it  is  morally  sup- 
plemented by  a  fine  patience  and  devoted 
persistence;  it  includes  a  genuine  inventive 
faculty;  it  is  enriched  by  careful  cultiva- 
tion. The  highest  dramatic  temperaments 
conceive  and  represent  character  through 
the  exercise  of  a  reproductive  and  creative 

[    216    ] 


HENRY  IRVING 


faculty  which  is  like  the  poet's.  Similar 
results  may  be  reached  through  the  de- 
liberate, cumulative  work  of  the  mind, 
which  first  analyzes  the  character,  and 
then,  piece  by  piece,  fabricates  an  imita- 
tion; and  the  mental  gifts  required  for  such 
a  process  of  analysis  and  simulation  are 
of  a  rare  and  varied  sort.  That  there  is 
an  immense  delight  in  encountering  such 
an  intelligence  as  this  upon  the  stage,  no 
one  will  deny.  Its  noblest  and  loftiest  ex- 
ercise must  inevitably  be  had  in  the  pre- 
sentation of  Shakespeare;  and  here  Mr. 
Irving's  work  becomes,  in  every  matter 
where  pure  intellect  and  refined  scholar- 
ship can  avail,  a  subject  for  the  profound- 
est  satisfaction.  His  skill  in  arrano^inor 
the  scenes  and  in  cutting  the  dialogue  is 
admirably  good,  and  his  reverent  regard 
for  the  accepted  text  is  scarcely  less 
excellent  than  his  brilliant  ingenuity  in 
varying  the  text  of  doubtful  passages.  In 
playing    Hamlet,  his    mental    power   and 

[    217    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


learning  have  their  highest  exemplification. 
No  character  in  Shakespeare,  with  the 
possible  exceptions  of  King  John  and  King 
Lear,  asks,  "  in  the  true  performing  of  it," 
such  variety,  penetration,  subtilty,  and 
sensitiveness  of  mind  as  the  accomplished 
Prince  of  Denmark.  Simply  to  understand 
his  plainer  speech  is  much,  for  Hamlet's 
meaning  does  not  often  lie  near  the  sur- 
face. But  to  follow  all  the  twists  and  turns 
of  his  swift-pacing  wit,  even  before  it 
shows  the  disorder  of  real  or  pretended 
disease;  to  feel,  as  the  condition  precedent 
of  reproducing  them,  the  contrasting  glow 
and  gloom  of  his  wondrous  imagination; 
to  justify  his  incoherence  by  exhibiting  the 
missing  links  of  thought  which  his  indiffer- 
ence or  ecstasy  so  often  drops;  to  display 
the  deep  affectionateness  which  the  keener 
intuition  discovers  under  all  his  masks;  to 
show  the  superfine  sanity  which  constantly 
characterizes  his  wildest  utterances,  and 
yet  to  indicate  his  dangerous  nearness  to 

[    218    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


that  madness  with  which  "  great  wit  ever 
is  alHed;  "  and  finally,  to  exhibit  a  charac- 
ter that,  in  spite  of  all  the  contradictions 
with  which  the  master-poet  has  chosen  to 
fill  it,  shall  yet  be  human,  lovable,  and 
reasonably  comprehensible,  —  these  are 
tasks  which  require  the  most  searching, 
refined,  and  patient  intelligence;  and  by 
their  accomplishment  Mr.  Irving  proves 
hi^  mental  quality  beyond  dispute,  and  his 
ability  to  grapple  with  any  dramatic  dif- 
ficulty which  a  well-furnished  brain  can 
overcome.  The  artist's  intelligence,  in  this 
impersonation,  constantly  shines  with  elec- 
tric clearness,  and  it  seems  to  me  that 
there  is  scarcely  a  sentence  which  does  not 
receive  a  new  illumination  from  his  action 
or  utterance.  Even  soliloquies,  which  of 
course  suffer  under  his  poor  elocution, 
are  thought  out  so  lucidly  and  given  with 
such  care  —  though  always  as  if  the  actor 
were  thinking  aloud,  and  not  "  speaking  a 
piece "  —  that   they   often    disclose    new 

[    219    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


beauties  and  new  meanings.  Exquisite 
taste,  as  well  as  acumen,  constantly  appears 
in  an  unerring  sense  of  the  relation  of  each 
speech  to  every  other,  to  every  personage 
and  the  whole  play,  and  in  the  subordina- 
tion of  his  own  part,  when,  as  in  the  first 
long  scene  with  the  Ghost,  a  temporary 
effacement  of  himself  is  due  to  the  artistic 
needs  of  the  situation.  The  melancholy  of 
the  Prince  is  of  a  sort  which  Mr.  Irving  is 
singularly  well  fitted  to  reproduce,  through 
the  cast  of  his  countenance,  the  quality  of 
his  voice  in  its  low  tones,  and  the  bent 
of  his  temperament;  and  with  Hamlet's 
habits  of  introspection  and  metaphysical 
speculation  the  actor's  sympathy  is  most 
intimate  and  profound. 

It  must  be  remembered,  as  a  practical 
qualification  of  all  which  has  been  said  of 
Mr.  Irving's  intensity,  artistic  perception, 
and  mental  force,  that  these  noble  qualities 
are  sorely  let  and  hindered,  in  their  opera- 
tion upon  the  stage,  by  the  faults  of  style 

[    220    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


and  method  to  which  I  have  called  atten- 
tion, except  only  in  the  performance  of 
parts  like  Louis  and  Dubosc,  where  his  ec- 
centricities are  as  often  helpful  as  hurtful. 
Yet  I  have  meant  it  to  appear  that  Mr. 
Irving,  in  spite  of  his  faults,  is,  in  my 
opinion,  the  most  purely  intellectual,  the 
most  picturesque,  and  perhaps,  on  the 
whole,  the  most  interesting  of  modern 
English-speaking  actors.  The  adjective 
"  interesting "  gives  the  cue  for  a  plain 
statement  of  his  peculiar  limitations.  I 
have  never  seen  a  performer  that  aspired 
to  the  name  of  tragedian  who  was  so  de- 
ficient as  he  in  the  higher  emotional  force 
and  in  sustained  passionate  power.  Except 
in  his  gift  of  dealing  with  the  supernatural, 
—  by  which,  in  Mathias,  he  makes  a  tre- 
mendous attack  upon  the  nerves,  and  in 
Hamlet  finely  affects  the  imagination,  — 
he  is  an  extraordinarily  light  ac|or  in  so 
far  as  he  appeals  to  the  feelings.  Many  a 
poor  player,  who  is  immeasurably  below 

[     221     ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


him  in  refinement,  taste,  and  learning,  is 
his  superior  in  this  respect.  The  want  from 
which  the  difficulty  grows  is  deep-seated, 
and  is,  I  am  convinced,  nothing  else  than 
a  lack  of  that  temperamental  solidity  and 
force  out  of  which  alone  the  actor's  most 
potent  lightning  can  be  forged.  It  is  not 
necessary  for  the  purposes  of  passion  that 
this  force  should  be  accompanied  with 
what  Mr.  Irving's  idolaters  sneeringly  de- 
nominate "  robustiousness."  The  sinew 
and  muscle  —  the  brawn,  if  you  please  — 
of  which  I  speak  is  in  the  will  and  heart 
and  imagination,  not  in  the  arms  and  legs. 
If  one  seeks  it  in  its  grandest  form  to- 
day, it  is  to  be  found  in  Signor  Salvini, 
who  in  intellect  is  but  little  inferior  to  Mr. 
Irving,  and  in  artistic  faculty  is  decidedly 
above  him  ;  but  it  filled  the  genius  of  the 
pigmy  Edmund  Kean,  and  it  is  abundant 
in  our  own  slender  Mr.  Booth.  It  lies  at 
the  root  of  the  ability  both  to  conceive  and 
to  express  the  greatest  human  emotions  ; 

[      222      ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


it  is  the  source  of  the  pure,  pathetic  faculty; 
it  is  essential  to  a  complete  mastery  of  the 
spectator;  it  gives  the  eagle's  tireless  wing 
to  the  actor's  impassioned  speech.  I  have 
already  alluded  to  Mr.  Irving's  inability, 
through  lack  of  elocutionary  variet}?^  and 
strength,  either  to  attain  or  to  sustain  the 
effects  of  noble  declamation ;  but  his  entire 
performance  displays,  through  an  unbroken 
series  of  phenomena,  the  want  of  that  tem- 
peramental impetus  of  which  his  feeble 
speech  and  his  monotonous  repetition  of 
the  rhythmic  nod  of  the  head,  the  dull 
stamp  of  the  foot,  and  the  queer  clutch  of 
the  breast  in  exacting  passages  are  but 
single  symptoms.  Mr.  Irving's  style  has  in 
no  respect  the  sustained  quality  ;  it  is,  so 
to  speak,  altogether  staccato;  there  are  no 
sweeps  or  long  strokes  in  it,  but  every- 
thing is  accomplished  by  a  series  of  light, 
disconnected  touches  or  dabs,  the  total  ef- 
fect of  which,  when  the  subject  is  not  too 
lofty,  is  agreeable  and  harmonious.    As  for 

[    223    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


his  loftier-reaching  passion,  it  has  the  flight, 
not  of  the  storm-defying  eagle,  but  of  the 
short-winged,  often-resting  domestic  fowl. 
Mr.  Irving's  selection  of  parts  for  perform- 
ance in  America  affords  a  pretty  sure  in- 
dication of  his  consciousness  of  his  limita- 
tions. But  every  one  of  the  impersonations 
which  he  has  given  here  furnishes  evi- 
dence, directly  and  indirectly,  of  the  truth 
of  my  thesis.  The  appeal  which  he  makes 
is  generally  to  the  intellect  or  the  artistic 
sense;  he  goes  higher  only  when  he  must, 
and  then  he  almost  always  fails.  Louis 
and  Dubosc  are  "  character  parts,"  and  are 
natural  and  proper  subjects  for  picturesque 
treatment.  But  Mr.  Irving  does  not  at- 
tempt to  make  anything  more  of  them,  and 
their  malevolent  wickedness,  which  an 
actor  of  emotional  genius  might  use  to  fill 
the  spectator  with  loathing  and  abhorrence, 
is  a  purely  aesthetic  delight  to  the  most 
sensitive  observer  of  his  interpretation. 
Charles  I.  is  an  exquisite  portrait,  painted 

[    224    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


with  beautiful  softness  and  tenderness  of 
tints,  and  is  mildly  touching  in  its  melan- 
choly dignity ;  but  its  opportunities  for 
poignant  pathos  are  neglected,  or  frittered 
away.  In  Shylock  Mr.  Irving  makes  his 
most  conspicuous  failure  in  this  kind. 
There  are  some  very  strong  points  in  his 
impersonation,  and  the  outlines  of  the  char- 
acter are  drawn  with  a  firm  and  skillful 
hand;  but  the  stress  of  the  Jew's  great  pas- 
sion is  scarcely  hinted  at,  except  through 
the  grim  reserve  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
trial  scene,  and  the  explosions  of  his  vol- 
canic nature  are  accompanied  by  nothing 
more  than  a  little  rattle  and  steam.  Mr. 
Irving's  Hamlet  is  not  far  from  being  an 
exception  to  the  rule  which  has  been  laid 
down;  but  upon  close  scrutiny,  I  think  it 
will  not  be  found  to  weaken  the  force  of 
what  I  have  urged.  It  shows,  indeed,  the 
highest  reach  and  amplest  scope  of  the 
actor's  intelligence;  but  I  venture  to  differ 
from  Mr.  Archer,  the  critic,  by  asserting 

[    225    ] 


A   DRAMATIC    CRITIC 

that  Hamlet  is  not  essentially  heroic,  and, 
on  the  contrary,  is  a  "character  part." 
That  Hamlet  is  eminently  picturesque  is 
obvious;  that  he  is  not  a  character  of  sus- 
tained passion  is  equally  obvious,  inasmuch 
as  infirmity  of  will  is  his  chief  moral  trait. 
At  all  events,  it  is  certain  that  Mr.  Irving 
follows  the  lighter  method  in  his  imper- 
sonation, and  that  his  success  in  it  is  won 
chiefly  through  the  variety,  vivacity,  and 
delicacy  with  which  he  represents  the  pic- 
turesque side  of  the  Prince's  nature.  Upon 
a  review  of  Mr.  Irving's  efforts,  it  will 
even  be  seen,  not  only  that  he  has  no 
capacity  for  displaying  vigorous,  sustained 
passion,  but  that  he  never  attains  a  lofty, 
emotional  pitch,  even  for  a  moment.  In  all 
his  performances,  I  can  recall  but  one  in- 
stance to  the  contrary,  and  that,  as  all  my 
readers  know,  occurs  just  before  the  close 
of  the  "  play  scene  "  in  Hamlet,  where  his 
snaky  wriggle  towards  the  King,  his  scream 
of  triumph  and  wrath,  and  his  frenzied  but 

[    226    ] 


HENRY  IRVING 


regal  action  in  mounting  the  throne  and 
holding  it,  as  if  he  had  just  dispossessed 
a  usurper,  always  produce  a  strong  thrill 
in  the  audience.  The  instance,  however, 
is  isolated,  and  it  is  curious  to  note  that 
Mr.  Irving  accomplishes  all  the  best  of  the 
effect  of  the  scene  without  the  help  of  any 
comprehensible  speech.  If  further  proof 
were  wanting  of  the  lightness  of  Mr.  Ir- 
ving's  emotional  gift,  it  might  be  found  in 
the  uniform  demeanor  of  his  audiences; 
those  of  America  repeating,  according  to 
my  experience,  the  behavior  of  those  of 
London,  who,  if  Mr.  Archer's  keen  eye- 
sight is  to  be  trusted,  are  almost  always 
"  intellectuall}'  interested,  but  not  emo- 
tionally excited."  That  Mr.  Irving  ever 
attempted  Macbeth  and  Othello  seems  im- 
possible; that  he  should  ever  presume  to 
attempt  King  Lear  is  incredible. 

My  conclusions,  then,  are  these:  that 
Mr.  Irving's  art  would  be  much  more  ef- 
fectual than  it  is  if  "  to  do"  were  one  half 

[    227    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


"  as  easy "  with  him  as  his  knowledge  of 
"  what  were  good  to  do  "  is  clear;  that  if 
abundance,  brilliancy,  clearness  and  refine- 
ment of  thought,  artistic  insight,  definite- 
ness  of  purpose,  sincerity  of  feeling,  and 
intensity  of  devotion  were  all  that  is 
needed  in  a  player,  he  would  be  easily  first 
among  the  actors  of  our  time;  that,  since 
the  highest  end  of  acting  is  not  to  refresh 
and  stimulate  the  mind,  to  refine  and 
gratify  the  taste,  or  to  charm  the  fancy, 
but  strongly  to  move  the  spirit  and  pro- 
foundly to  stir  the  heart,  his  claim  to  a 
place  among  the  greatest  masters  of  his 
craft  is  not  as  yet  made  out.  After  all  is 
said,  I  find  there  is  a  certain  charm  in  his 
performance  which  has  not  been  accounted 
for,  which  defies  analysis,  and  refuses  even 
to  be  described,  but  which  is  strangely 
potent  upon  the  imagination  of  the  spec- 
tator. That  his  existence  in  the  dramatic 
profession,  even  as  he  is,  with  all  his  im- 
perfections on  his  head,  is  an  inestimable 

[    228    ] 


HENRY  IRVING 


boon  to  the  stage  of  England  and  America 
seems  to  me  quite  clear,  inasmuch  as  it  is 
impossible  that  his  peculiar  faults  should 
find  many  imitators.  And,  looking  at  Mr. 
Irving,  the  most  advanced  English  student 
of  the  drama  may  find  one  obvious  com- 
pensation for  the  absence  of  a  conservatory 
like  that  of  Paris,  and  of  a  theatre  like  the 
Fran9ais:  for  in  the  destruction  of  his 
mannerisms,  which  must  have  made  a  part 
of  Mr.  Irving's  pupilage,  the  artist  himself 
would  surely  have  perished,  as  the  hero- 
ine of  Hawthorne's  most  fanciful  story 
died  under  the  process  of  obliterating  the 
birthmark  from  her  cheek.  To  Mr.  Ir- 
ving's marvelous  skill  in  setting  and  adorn- 
ing his  stage,  and  in  guiding  his  supporting 
performers,  —  a  skill  which  seems  to 
amount  almost  to  genius,  —  I  can  make 
only  this  brief  allusion.  Our  public  are 
not  likely  to  forget  that  the}^  owe  to  him 
representations  of  Shakespeare  which  have 
done  more  to  educate  the  community,  and 

[    229    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


have  given,  on  the  whole,  more  complete 
satisfaction  and  refined  pleasure,  than  any 
others  which  the  American  stage  has  ever 
known. 


The  criticism  which  precedes  this  para- 
graph was  printed  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
of  March,  1884,  a  few  months  after  Mr. 
Irving's  first  appearances  in  this  country. 
Since  that  time  he  has  had  several  seasons 
in  America,  and  our  theatre-attenders  and 
critics  have  had  many  opportunities  to 
consider  and  reconsider  the  quality  of  his 
art.  Rereading  my  essay,  I  have  decided 
to  reprint  it  with  no  substantial  change, 
inasmuch  as  I  find  that  no  substantial 
change  of  my  opinions  has  taken  place  ad 
interim^  though  my  general  summing-up 
would  now  be  less  favorable  to  Mr.  Irving 
than  then  it  was.  In  the  class  of  actors 
worthy  to  be  entitled  ^'  great,"  I  know  of  no 
other  player  than  he  whose  appeal  is  effec- 

C    230    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


tual  with  the  spectator  ahnost  wholly 
through  the  sense  of  the  picturesque,  or 
through  what  a  writer  of  the  eighteenth 
century  would  denominate  the  softer  sen- 
sibilities. Neither  in  the  view  nor  the 
retrospect  does  his  acting  make  the  blood 
jump,  deeply  stir  the  heart,  or  produce  any 
of  the  higher  emotions:  one  remembers 
him  principally  as  a  crisper  of  the  nerves 
and  a  pleaser  or  tingler  of  the  retina. 

The  more  important  characters  added  to 
Mr.  Irving's  repertory  in  this  country  since 
he  first  pla3'ed  here  are  Dr.  Primrose  in 
Mr.  Wills's  dramatic  version  of  The  Vicar 
of  Wakefield;  Mephistopheles  in  Goethe's 
Faust,  reconstructed  for  the  modern  Brit- 
ish market;  Robespierre  ;n  Sardou's  melo- 
dramatic tragedy  of  that  name;  and  Mac- 
beth. The  writer  manifestly  underrated 
the  artist's  courage,  inasmuch  as  Mr. 
Irving  did  perform  both  King  Lear  and 
Macbeth  in  England,  and  made  the  latter 
character  the  prime  feature   of   a  recent 

>*  [    231    ] 


A   DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


American  engagement.  None  of  these  as- 
sumptions showed  Mr.  Irving  in  any  new- 
lights.  His  Dr.  Primrose  was  suave,  be- 
nignant, and  winning,  the  combination  of 
simpHcity,  rusticity,  nobility,  and  essential 
refinement  of  Goldsmith's  creation  being 
beautifully  reproduced.  Mephistopheles 
was  intellectually  interesting  and  spectac- 
ularly effective.  Robespierre  was  chiefly 
valuable  because  of  the  shrewd  skill  with 
which  the  softer  side  of  the  terrible  patriot 
was  contrasted  with  his  hard  cruelty. 

Mr.  Irving's  Macbeth,  which  was  first 
shown  in  America  during  the  season  of 
1895-96,  was  what  might  have  been  ex- 
pected in  every  particular  of  its  strength 
and  its  weakness.  It  was  admirably  self- 
consistent,  and  at  its  highest  moments  was 
briefly  pathetic  or  fantastically  impressive. 
The  Scottish  soldier,  assassin,  and  usurper 
was  presented  as  a  subtle,  crafty  hypocrite, 
introverted,  superstitious,  sneakish,  void  of 
moral  scruple,  almost  wanting  in  physical 

[    232    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


courage.  Nearly  all  the  greatest  commen- 
tators have  agreed  that  Macbeth,  after  the 
murder  of  Duncan,  grows  steadily  and 
rapidly  harder  and  tougher,  always  strong 
in  imaginative  vision  intellectually,  but  less 
and  less  capable  even  of  high  or  unselfish 
conceptions,  his  whole  nature  sustaining 
hideous  induration  and  decadence.  But 
Mr.  Irving  in  the  first  two  acts  so  slurred 
the  better  elements  in  Macbeth's  character 
that  there  was  no  possible  interest  to  be 
taken  in  the  struggle  between  the  powers 
of  good  and  evil  in  his  soul;  and,  after 
his  great  crime,  he  appeared  not  different 
in  substance  from  what  he  was  before,  or, 
rather,  by  a  strange  perversion  and  inver- 
sion of  the  scheme  of  the  text,  he  was 
shown  not  as  firmer,  but  softer,  of  fibre, 
more  and  more  hysterical  and  spasmodic, 
more  inordinate  in  grimace  and  snarl,  a 
creature  not  much  unlike  the  Louis  XI. 
whom  Mr,  Irving  has  given  us.  In  short, 
the  heroic  element,  the  potency  of  physique 

[    233    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


and  will,  the  solid  force  of  nature,  which 
might  be  exhibited  without  suppressing 
Macbeth's  vivacity,  nervousness,  and  ima- 
ginative sensitiveness,  suffered  a  total 
eclipse. 

Such  a  scheme  of  the  character  may  be 
defended  on  one  line  of  reasoning  and  sup- 
ported by  citations  here  and  there  from 
the  text  of  the  tragedy.  But  an  unpre- 
judiced critic  will  surmise  that  the  causa 
causans  of  what  must  be  pronounced  an 
inadequate  and  un-Shakespearean  concep- 
tion is  in  the  operation  of  the  actor's  sub- 
consciousness of  limitations  which  dis- 
qualify him  for  the  portrayal  of  the  part 
on  a  more  robust  plan.  Precedents  and 
parallels  are  common  of  like  mental  pro- 
cesses in  other  actors  and,  indeed,  in 
artists  in  all  the  arts.  There  is  seldom  any 
insincerity  in  such  cases:  the  "  sub  "  which 
modifies  the  consciousness  clears  the  theo- 
rist of  the  charge  of  untruthfulness;  he  is 
really  not  aware  that  his  knowledge  of  his 

[    234    ] 


HENRY   IRVING 


own  powers  is  the  chief  factor  of  his  aes- 
thetic judgments. 

Mr.  Irving's  delivery  of  the  text  of  Mac- 
beth was  often  inadequate.  The  greatest 
passages  were  generally  the  greatest  suf- 
ferers. The  vast  potencies  of  such  lines  as 
the  incomparable  five  which  begin,  — 

"  What  hands  are  here  !  ha  !  they  pluck  out  mine 
eyes," 

were  melted  into  commonplace  under  his 
tongue.  On  the  other  hand,  the  meaner 
side  of  the  part  was  frequently  made  very 
vivid;  and  some  sombre  descriptive  lines 

such  as 

"  Ere  the  bat  hath  flown 
His  cloister'd  flight,  ere  to  black  Hecate's  summons 
The  shard-borne  beetle  with  his  drowsy  hums 
Hath  rung  night's  yawning  peal," 

and 

' '  Light  thickens ;  and  the  crow 
Makes  wing  to  the  rooky  wood  : 
Good  things  of  day  begin  to  droop  and  drowse ; 
Whiles  night's  black  agents  to  their  preys  do  rouse," 

[    235    ] 


A  DRAMATIC   CRITIC 


were  so  delivered  as  darkly  to  haunt  the 
secret  places  of  the  memory  as  some  som- 
bre winged  things  haunt  the  recesses  of 
caves. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Actors,  training  of,  68-75; 
segregation  of,  103-105; 
general  isolation,  106-109; 
peculiarities  of,  109-111; 
disappearance  of  tragic,  133; 
would  profit  by  Endowed 
Theatre,  188;  American  tem- 
perament suited  to,  188,  189. 

Advertiser,  Boston  Daily,  4,  21. 

Archer,  William,  197,  225. 

Barnard,  Charles,  190. 

Barrett,  Mrs.,  52. 

Barron,  Charles,  52. 

Barry,  Mrs.  Thomas,  34,  49. 

Beauvallet,  M.  Leon,  57,  58. 

Belasco,  Mr.,  190. 

Betsy  Baker,  15. 

Blanchard,  Miss  Kitty,  34. 

Booth,  Edwin,  48, 131-133, 143, 
216 ;  progress  and  variety, 
133,  134;  distinction  in  elo- 
cution, 133;  hisShylock,  135; 
his  Richelieu,  135  ;  his  lago, 
I35>  ^36  ;  his  King  Lear, 
136-138;  his  Hamlet,  139- 
141  ;  his  limitations,  138. 

Boston,  naive  passion  for  the 
theatre,  31 ;  home  and  work- 
shop of  Wm.  Warren,  53 ; 
its  Theatre  P"ran9ais  in  Wm. 
Warren,  56 ;  accepts  Fech- 
ter's  Hamlet,  117;  indiscrimi- 
nating  and  greedy,  190-192. 

Boston  Museum,  7,  9,  50-53,58. 

Boston  Theatre,  50,  113,  132, 
142. 

Box  and  Cox,  15,  16. 

Buckstone,  J.  B.,  15. 


Carson,  Miss,  34. 
Cary,  Miss  Mary,  34,  49. 
Caste,  Robertson's,  38,  42. 
Chanfrau,  Mrs.  F.  S.,  34-36. 
Children  of  Cyprus,  The,  9. 
ChUdren,  Dramas  for,  7-9. 
Clapp,  Henry  Austin,  3-5,  27- 

30- 

Clarke,  Miss  Annie,  52. 

Comer,  Tom,  51. 

Criticism,  dramatic,  should  be 
free  and  clean,  23;  power 
and  impotence  of,  24 ;  great- 
er   public    uninfluenced   by, 

Critics,  dramatic,  22  ;  ideal,  22; 
generally  honorable,  23  ;  per- 
sonae  non  gratae,  31,  32. 

Curtis,  Mrs.  D.  S.,  36,  37. 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  47,  82  ;  as 
Meg  Merrilies,  83,  84;  as 
Lady  Macbeth,  84-86 ;  as 
Queen  Katharine,  86-92. 

Daly,  H.  F.,  34. 
Davenport,  Mrs.  E.  L.,  34. 
David    Garrick,    Robertson's, 

37,  38. 

Davies,  J.,  52. 

Dora,  Charles  Reade's,  34-36. 

Drama,  ephemeral,  39-42  ;  Ro- 
bertsonian,  42-45  ;  law  of  sur- 
vival of,  44,  45 ;  American, 
48,  189,  190. 

Drunkard,  The,  9. 

Dunbar,  Charles  F.,  4. 

Elaine,  George  P.  Lathrop's, 
183. 


[     239     ] 


INDEX 


Enchanted  Beauty,  The,  9. 
Enchanted  Horse,  The,  9. 

Farces,  Old  Time,  vogue  and 
sources,  13;  merits  and  faults, 
14,  15;  theory  of,  14;  great 
actors  in,  15;  authors  of,  1 5, 
16;  best  examples  of,  13,  15, 
16. 

Fechter,  Charles,  47  ;  career  as 
an  actor,  11 3-1 17;  appear- 
ance and  equipment,  117- 
120;  in  Hamlet,  116,  117, 
120,  121  ;  in  Ruy  Bias,  121- 
123;  in  The  Lady  of  Lyons, 
123-125;  as  a  lover,  124; 
limitations  of,  125,  126;  mis- 
take as  to  a  text  of  Hamlet, 
126,  127  ;  decadence  and 
death,  128,  129. 

Fitch,  Clyde,  190. 

Foregone  Conclusion,  A,  181, 
182. 

Forty  Thieves,  The,  9,  10. 

Gaszynski,  Miss,  12. 
Gillette,  William,  190. 
Globe  Theatre,  50,  129. 
Greek  Drama,  46. 
Griffiths,  G.  H.,  34. 

Hardenbergh,  F.,  52. 
Harris,  Miss,  34. 
Home,  Robertson's,  38. 
Howard  Athenaeum,  18. 
Howard,  Bronson,  48,  190. 
Howells,  WilHam  D.,  181. 

Ici  On  Parle  Fran9ais,  16. 

Introduction  to  Reminiscences, 
1-4. 

Irving,  Henry,  194-197  ;  career 
in  America,  198  ;  peculiari- 
ties and  mannerisms,  198- 
203 ;  his  personality,  204- 
207;  his  intensity,  208-211  ; 
his  artistic  sense,  212-215; 
his  intellectuality,   215-219; 


his  Mathias,  210,  211  ;  his 
Louis  XL,  212-214;  his  Du- 
bosc,  212,  214,  215^;  his 
Charles  I.,  215,  224,  225  ;  his 
Shylock,  225  ;  his  Hamlet, 
217-220,  225-227  ;  his  deal- 
ing with  the  supernatural, 
221;  his  limitations,  221-225; 
critical  estimate  of,  227-229; 
his  Dr.  Primrose,  231,  232; 
his  Mephistopheles,23i,  232; 
his  Robespierre,  231, 232;  his 
Macbeth,  232-236. 

James,  Louis,  179,  180. 
Janauschek,  Madame,  48,  iSo, 

181. 
Jefferson,  Joseph,  13,  48,  64. 
Josephs,  Harry,  34. 

Keach,  Mr.,  52,  58. 
Kemble,  Mrs.,  177,  178. 

Lathrop,  George  P.,  183. 
Leclercq,    Miss     Carlotta,  47, 

127,  128. 
Le  Moyne,  W.  J.,  34,  49. 
Little  Em'ly,  Dickens's,  48,  49. 

Mathews,  Charles   James,  47, 

77,  79-81- 

Morant,  Miss  Fanny,  28,  34. 

Morris  Bros.,  Pell  &  Trow- 
bridge, 17. 

Morton,  John  Madison,  15. 

Murdock,  H.  S.,  34. 

Negro  Minstrelsy,  17. 

Neilson,  Adelaide,  48  ;  her  ca- 
reer as  an  actress,  1 59-161; 
her  progress  as  an  artist,  161, 
162,  169  ;  her  Juliet,  163, 
164  ;  her  Rosalind,  164,  165  ; 
her  Imogen,  165-167  ;  her 
personality,  167,  168  ;  her  Vi- 
ola, 170-172  ;  plastic  beauty 
of,  168,  169;  relation  with 
the  Ideal,  171,  172. 


[     240     ] 


INDEX 


Nilsson,  Christine,  47,  173-175. 

Ours,  Robertson's,  35,  43,  44. 

Partridge,    William     Ordway, 

176,  177. 
Piamonti,  Signora,  155-158. 
Pearson,  H.,  34,  49. 
Phillipps,  Adelaide,  10. 
Poor  Pillicoddy,  16. 

Quinquennium,  Great  Dra- 
matic, 47. 

Raymond,  John  T.,  49. 
Reignolds,  Miss  Kate,  52. 
Ristori,  Madame,  216. 
Robertson,  T.  W.,  35,  37-39, 

42-46. 
Robinson,  Frederic,  34,  35,  49. 
Robson,  Stuart,  34. 
Rolfe,  Dr.  Wm.  J.,  5. 
Russell,  Miss  Annie,  183,  184. 

Salvini,  Alexander,  181,  182. 

Salvini,  Tommaso,  47, 142  ;  his 
personality  and  equipment, 
143-145  ;  his  Othello,  145- 
147;  his  Samson,  147-150; 
his  Sullivan,  150;  his  Ingo- 
mar,  150;  his  Conrad,  151- 
155;  his  King  Lear,  151 ;  his 
Ghost  in  Hamlet,  151. 

School,  Robertson's,  45,  46. 

Scribe,  Augustin  Eugene,  13. 

Secret    Service,    William   Gil- 

'  lette's,  190. 

Selwyn's  Theatre,  33-37,  49- 

Siddons,  Mrs.  Scott,  29,  30. 

Smith,  W.  H.,  51. 

Smith,  J.  A.,  52. 

Sothern,  E.  A.,  Sr.,  48,  93-103. 

Spirit  of  '76,  36,  37. 


Terry,  Miss  Ellen,  156. 
Thaxter,  Levi,  175,  176. 
Theatre,    The    Privately    En- 
dowed, 185-193. 
Thoman,  Mrs.,  51. 
Thomas,  Mr.,  190. 
Toodles,  16. 
Toole,  J.  L.,  76-79. 
Training  for  the  Stage,  68-75. 
Tree,  Beerbohm,  178. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  10-12. 

Vandenhoff,  C.  H.,  34. 
Variety  and  Vaudeville,  18,  19. 
Viennese  Children,  The,  7. 
Vincent,  Mrs.,  12,  52. 

Wallack,  James  W.,  128. 

Warren,  William  :  in  the  Forty 
Thieves,  10  ;  in  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,  11  ;  in  Farces,  15;  in 
Adrienne  the  Actress,  58 ; 
in  The  School  for  Scandal, 
62 ;  career  as  an  actor,  53, 
54 ;  number  and  variety  of 
parts  played,  54,  55,  61 ;  va- 
ried and  remarkable  skill, 
55>  S6>  59-61 ;  praise  of,  from 
M.  Beauvallet,  57,  58  ;  com- 
pared with  Joseph  Jefferson, 
54,  62-64 ;  personal  appear- 
ance and  manners,  65-67 ; 
blood  and  parentage,  69; 
training  for  the  stage,  68-70. 

Wells,  Miss,  34. 

Whitman,  Frank,  11,  12. 

Wilkins,  Mrs.,  34. 

Williams,  T.  J.,  15,  16. 

Wills,  W.  G.,  215,  231. 

Winslow,  Mrs.  Erving,  52. 

Winter,  Mr.  William,  117. 

Woods,  George  B.,  4. 


[     241      ] 


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